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FIGHTING
INVOICING SCAMSAnti-Scam Network
EUIPO Alicante, 28 February 2017
Carles Prat, member of the MARQUES Council and
of the MARQUES Anti-Fraud Task Force 1
The Identity of Brand Owners
MARQUES, the European association representing the interests of trade mark owners since 1986.
MARQUES’s mission is to safeguard the public interest by ensuring the proper protection of trademarks, as well as designs and other IP rights and to preserve the interests of IP proprietors with regard to the regime of trademark and design protection. MARQUES attempts to achieve these objectives by advancing the
cause of trademark and design laws, which protect the public from deception and confusion.
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It affects even the
chair of the
MARQUES Anti-
Fraud Task Force …
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Another good example
of invoicing scams
4
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The Spanish Patent and
Trademark Office alerts
about the existence of letters
issued with SPTO logo from
a fake “Department of Crime
Against Intellectual and
Industrial Property,
Consumption and the
Environment. Specialised
Crime Squad. Specialised
and Violent Crime Unit”
• MARQUES continued flow of complaints about scam invoicing (and similar communications)
• From IP owners and their representatives
• Part of broader practice of aggressive directory company sales practices:
• Advertising in catalogues
• Traffic fines
• Invoices for domain name renewal
• Invoices for software licences
Background (1)
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• Reasons why users pay the misleading invoices:
– Lack of IP expertise by entrepreneurs and
employees
– Fear to miss a deadline or instruction
• Often names, acronyms, logos or addresses
similar to those of real public IP offices are used
– The split roles in companies (decision makers vs.
payment processing)
Background (2)
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• These scams cause financial damage and frustrationto our corporate and expert members
• They hurt trust in the trademark and design industry (including the public IP offices)
• Various actions to raise public awareness / liaising with EUIPO
• We are very happy with EUIPO’s efforts and investments in combatting this form of fraud
– IT Investments
– Publicity / putting it on the agenda
– Litigation, e.g. in Sweden
Priority for MARQUES
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MARQUES
Anti-Fraud Task Force
• MARQUES Anti-Fraud Task Force is composed of:
– Willem Leppink (Chair of Task Force, member
MARQUES Exec Committee)
– Alicia Instone
– Alessandra Romeo (MARQUES External Relations
Officer)
– Carles Prat (MARQUES Council)
– Diana Versteeg (MARQUES past Chair)
– Prof. Jeremy Phillips (MARQUES Communications
Team; blogmeister)
– David Goldring (MARQUES Treasurer) [dearly missed]9
• Anyone can be a victim, also MARQUES!
• Our (external) secretariat which handles our back office paid a scam invoice for CLASS 46 (the name of our blog). It fell between the cracks. The secretariat management recognized the brand name and thought that it was an official invoice. At that time secretariat management did not consult our treasurer given the amount of the invoice.
• When EUIPO contacted the victims in the Swedish case, also MARQUES was contacted.
• Our treasurer David Golding was ashamed that this happened to us, but we immediately realized that scammers also count on the fact that people are ashamed and do not take follow up action. However, companies should not be ashamed.
• MARQUES decide to join the case as victim and after the first instance, the Chair of our AFTF, Willem Leppink has flown to Stockholm to be interrogated by the Public Prosecutor and the Police as potential witness in the appeal. Witness hearing in the Autumn of 2017.
• MARQUES has also made an effort in assisting EUIPO in using personal contacts for contacting the professional representatives of the victims that never responded to EUIPO’s requests.
MARQUES involvement in the Swedish criminal case
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• The 15 scammers made EUR700,000
• They were convicted of simple fraud and were
sentenced to 6-12 months in jail by first court
instance– The court was not convinced that people were really misled by these
emails but just paid because they did not want to run the risk of being
late.
• The trial before the Court of Appeal in Stockholm has
unfortunatelly been postponed
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• MARQUES will support EUIPO in the upcoming
Spanish criminal case
• For this we have provided EUIPO a letter with the
background of our involvement, the modus operandi
of scammers and the damage caused to our members
MARQUES involvement in the Spanish criminal case
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• Setting precedents, i.e. litigation is essential – to convince banks not to work with the criminals.
• IT
• Information remains essential, e.g. the EUIPO repository of scam invoices and standard texts
• EU harmonisation of laws making it possible to fight these scams.
• Active collaboration of Trademark Associations jointly with EUIPO and national IP Oficces.
Major Objectives
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