Received a request for fees?

We get a number of queries from clients telling us they have received a request for payment of fees and whether or not they should pay them.

In short the answer is a resounding NO.

Why not, it looks so real? Well there are a number of dubious companies out there that spend their time harvesting the publicly available details of newly lodged applications from various places such as the Australian IP offices, the European Patent Office and the PCT Office. Armed with these details they then send out official looking notices asking for payment of monies for registration or publication of your details in some database.

The PCT office of WIPO have a nice collection of suspect notices as does the US Patent & Trademark Office and IP Australia, but their designs change from time to time.

Typically these sort of notices come from overseas but we have now seen a few that appear to originate in Australia from a company called Patent & Trademark Organization and are requesting payment of renewal fees many times greater than it actually costs through us! In some instances clients have paid without checking and by then its too late.

If you receive any notice requesting payment of fees that you are unsure about please contact us and we will help to clarify if it is legitimate.