Legal Action by the UK Intellectual Property Office

The UK Intellectual Property Office has shown that it really does believe in intellectual property, by successfully taking a legal action for "passing off". It took action against two organisations (and the individuals behind them), because they have been sending out official looking “renewal" notices to holders of UK registered patents and trade marks, offering to renew the rights for fees greatly in excess of the official renewal fees. We know that this type of activity has caused problems for some of our clients and we try to make sure that all of our clients are aware of this practice. At least two sources of the problem should now disappear and we understand that the UK Intellectual Property Office is still pursuing legal action against a third. Any official correspondence concerning your intellectual property, sent by any official body, should initially be addressed to ourselves as your representatives. Any payment request which you receive directly is likely to be one of these unsolicited approaches and can probably be ignored. However, since the tactic of many of these organisations is to make their documents look official, please feel free to forward anything to us if you are unsure.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please get in touch with your usual contact at Swindell & Pearson or [email protected]