Talk:Scams in intellectual property

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1 Improvements to be Made
2 Resources to aid in expansion of article
3 Defining scope of article
4 Doublespeak
5 Copyright registration
6 Invention Promotion Firms
7 Title

[edit] Improvements to be Made

GD, Nice start. I think this will make an excellent article. Perhaps we should put a short note in the patent article about patent fraud in general.

I think it would be great to put in an example of one of the fraudulent notices. Any idea what the copyright situation is on these?--Nowa 11:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought about putting in one of the notices but, as you say, the copyright issue is difficult. I really don't have an answer to that one. WIPO has examples of several of them on their website which could be linked to rather than including one directly here.

As for mentioning fraud in other articles: I agree, and some links from the particular articles against which this scam is applied would be an idea. I just wanted to get a view as to whether the article was worth keeping before putting that sort of effort into it, though. GDallimore 12:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The USPTO has this to say about "invention promotion" firms. [1] This is a much grayer area than patent registration firms. --Nowa 13:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that this would make a good article. Perhaps a different title would be more appropriate? Like Trademark registration service or Trademark registration organization? Looking forward to this article, I learn something new everyday. -Taco325i 13:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've just realised that it covers almost the entire spectrum of IP. Patents, designs and trademarks. If we can find any examples of similar scams in the field of copyright, we could rightly rename the article "Intellectual property registration services" with redirects from each of Patent/Trademark/Design/Copyright registration services. Again, a plan for the future, though.

Other ideas I had, but hadn't bothered implementing yet were a discussion of the services that these people claim to offer (usually inclusion in some directory), a discussion of actions taken against these companies (see the OHIM link, although another source would be useful if we can find one) a list of effects on applicants (see if we can find anything by someone saying they actually paid the fee) and, important for NPOV, see if we can find anything positive about these companies. GDallimore 13:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resources to aid in expansion of article

Federal Trade Commission "Project Mousetrap" (cute.) -Taco325i 14:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting (and indeed cute!) as that report is, it is about invention promoters, who are a slightly different beast from these registration services. However maybe this is an article that can be expanded to cover several different types of scams relating to intellectual property - there is certainly a lot more information available on invention promoters, whereas registration services are a newer phenomenon. Not sure what the title of such an expanded article would be, though. GDallimore 15:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

GD, I think that invention promoters are a very different beast than the resistration services. The service (e.g. filing patents, promoting inventions) that invention promotion firms is clearly of value to inventors. I think the main criticism is that inventors feel that they are oversold on the probability of success, and many inventors don't get the services they think they are getting. Registration service firms, however, don't provide any extra value to listers.

Thus I think a separate invention promoters article would be good, but particular care must be taken to have NPOV.--Nowa 18:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Defining scope of article

We're limiting the scope of this article to fradulent registration organizations, right? -Taco325i 14:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, none of these organisations has yet been successfully stopped on the basis of fraudulent activities, although some appear to be under investigation. It would therefore be wrong of us to call any of these organisations fraudulent. The weaker word "scam" that I have used may not even be supported by the cited references. These organisations would no doubt argue that they are providing a bona fide service of entering details into a register on payment of a fee.

So I think the answer is that we should not limit to fraudulent activities (since that would reduce the article to nothing), but perhaps merely to activities about which notable IP sources have advised caution to applicants on the basis of any or all or the following features:

The organisations send notices promising entering details onto a register that provides not apparent benefit to the applicant
The wording of the notices includes a lot of lengthy small print explaining what the payment is actually for, which might not be properly read or understood (but which possibly prevents the notices being actively fraudulent)
The notices all require payment within very short terms, potentially causing the applicant to pay the fee without seeking professional advice.

I'm sure there are other prominent features about these organisations, but that's just a quick list of the major ones. GDallimore 15:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Doublespeak

"Registration services" sounds awfully like doublespeak to me. The article is about scams, right ("(...) attempt to take advantage of patent and trademark applicants or owners by requesting payment for an apparently official registration)? I have moved the article under WP:BOLD. --Edcolins 20:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer a title which included the words "registration service" in there somewhere. The reason being it will be easier to locate by searchers. Someone who gets one of these notices might run a search (either google or on WP) for "registration service" since this is what these people are advertising. I would want them to find this article relatively easily.

Most importantly, though, I do think that the word "scam" is NPOV and needs removing from the article. They haven't been proved as scams, and aren't called scams by the IPOs, even though they may look like it. GDallimore 21:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright registration

Could this article be expanded to cover sites/services such as http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk who aren't necessarily scamming, but do offer a registration service?

With this in mind, I think a nice NPOV title like "Intellectual property registration services" would be appropriate. GDallimore 21:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What about an article called Copyright registration service then? Non-official invention, patent and trademark registration services sound rather dodgy to me. --Edcolins 22:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invention Promotion Firms

I tried rewriting the Invention promotion firm section. I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the POV. I think it's clear that there are fraudulent firms, but I think that there are also legitimate firms as well. (See Licensing Executive Society) At some point it might be good idea to break this out as a separate article covering the general field of licensing firms.--Nowa 02:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I concur with GDallimore that the title is still not perfect. Maybe we need a title which is factual enough to describe and encompass the "schemes and services, in intellectual property, that have been qualified as scams or fraudulent activities". What about