WARNING: Requests for Payment of Fees

It has come to the attention of the International Bureau that PCT applicants and agents are receiving invitations to pay fees that do not come from the International Bureau of WIPO and are unrelated to the processing of international applications under the PCT.  Whatever registration services might be offered in such invitations, they bear no connection to WIPO or to any of its official publications.

The invitations often identify a particular PCT application by its international publication number (eg: WO 02 xxxxxx), publication date, title of the invention, international application number, priority information and IPC symbols; examples of such invitations can be viewed below. 

The invitations typically refer to a payment, which is to be made in euro or US dollars, by cheque and/or money transfer to addresses in Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Slovakia, Switzerland or the United States of America.

PCT applicants and agents should note that it is the International Bureau of WIPO alone which publishes all PCT applications promptly after the expiration of 18 months from the priority date (see PCT Article 21(2)(a)); there is no separate fee for such international publication, and the legal effects of international publication are set out in PCT Article 29.

In case of doubt in relation to such an invitation, please contact the International Bureau by telephone +41 22 338 83 38 or facsimile +41 22 338 83 39.

 

Other industrial property Offices have made similar warnings

  • The European Patent Office has published the following notice on its website warning applicants about such invitations.
  • The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office has published the following notice: Warning: unsolicited mail about unofficial registration services.
  • The sending of these notices appears to not be restricted to the patent context; within WIPO, the administration of the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks has placed a general warning on its website in relation to such invitations to pay fees, and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has published a similar warning after being informed that proprietors of Community trade mark applications and their representatives had been receiving such notices.

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