Intellectual property law firm Adams & Adams today issued a warning alerting South African companies of a scam emanating from "domain name service providers" in the UK, regarding the registration of domain names in various domain name spaces, such as .co.za, .com and .co.uk.
"Owners of intellectual property rights and, in particular, trademarks, are warned to be on the lookout for these unscrupulous operators, 'selling` domain names," says Steven Yeates, partner at Adams & Adams.
So-called service providers visit the Web sites of well-known South African companies to determine the primary trademarks of the company, Yeates says in a statement, adding that they then conduct searches to ascertain whether domain names, which incorporate the well-known trademarks, are available for registration.
For example, the domain names "adamsandadamsintellectualpropertylawyers.com" or "adamsandadamsspecialisedlegalservices.net" would typically be identified by the fraudsters, since they consist of the "Adams & Adams" trademark, together with descriptive material such as "intellectualpropertylawyers" or "specialisedlegalservices", Yeates notes.
"Once the service providers have determined which domain names are available for registration, they send a pro-forma invoice to the South African company concerned requesting payment for the registration of the domain names, usually for a period of 10 years.
"Alternatively, the South African company is notified that a third party is attempting to register the domain names in question and that, 'as a courtesy` they contact the company to give it the opportunity to register the domain names first."
Yeates says that, in most cases, the proprietor is given two to 24 hours in which to respond, failing which the domain names will allegedly be registered.
"In all instances, the threats have turned out to be groundless and the potentially infringing domain names have not been registered by any third party. The domain names selected by the service providers are generally of little value, as they usually incorporate unnecessary descriptive material and, typically, most businesses would not register long and, quite frankly, difficult to remember domain names," he says.
Domain names are Internet addresses used by members of the public on a daily basis and form an integral part of any company`s intellectual property portfolio. They are generally easy to register and are open to abuse, Yeates says.
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