Bay of Plenty businesses have been warned to be on the lookout for a scam that has cost some companies thousands of dollars in fees for deceptively worded invoices claiming to offer international patent and trademark protection.
"I could give you a dozen examples in the past month alone," said David Macaskill, a lawyer with intellectual property (IP) firm James & Wells. "I had one client that paid 2500 [$4000], but so far there have only been two I'm aware of that have paid."
However, Mr Macaskill noted that he couldn't quantify how many companies had been affected because many arranged their own IP and trademark registrations.
A typical demand was received by John Miller, founder of Tauranga's Foot Mechanics podiatry chain, who received two authentic-looking invoices in the mail from a company going under the name Trademark Selection in Zurich, Switzerland, and Trademark Selection in Florida, US.
Each invoice asked for 1185 for the registration of Foot Mechanics' two key trademarks, payable to a Bank of America account in Florida.