Over the past few days, we have received several enquiries and reports regarding an English-language email offering purported trademark registration before the State Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Croatia by the so-called “EU Trademark Authority”. The email address and signature identify Olena Manuilenko, an attorney at our law firm.
This is a scam intended to induce recipients to make a payment through a link sent by the fraudsters in subsequent email correspondence. It may also result in data theft from people who open such a link or pay the requested amount for the alleged trademark registration. Do not reply to this email. Delete it immediately from your inbox to avoid the risk of activating viruses or other malicious software that such fraudulent emails may contain. If you have paid the requested amount by bank card through a link received from the fraudsters, block the card immediately and contact your bank to prevent any further loss.
There is no official body called the “EU Trademark Authority”, despite what the name is intended to suggest. To make the email appear credible, its signature includes the name of a real person—an attorney at our law firm who does, among other things, practise intellectual property law, including trademark registration. This is intended to mislead even recipients who may search online and establish that the person is real.
We stress that competent authorities, attorneys, and authorised representatives for trademarks (or patents) will never contact you by email asking you to urgently reserve or register your name or mark before their client, who has allegedly already approached them with a registration request. By creating a sense of time pressure, financial pressure and/or legal urgency, fraudsters seek to provoke an impulsive reaction and carry out their scam.
