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

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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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THANK YOU!

Carles Prat and Willem Leppink

MARQUES

carles.prat@bakermckenzie.com

w.leppink@ploum.nl

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