'IP Register UG': a Munich court convicts three over fake EUIPO invoices
In September 2024 the Munich court found three defendants guilty of commercial gang fraud for sending letters under the name "IP Register UG" that closely resembled official European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) fee invoices. Each was sentenced to one year and ten months, suspended for three years' probation, and the court ordered confiscation of about €200,000. The EUIPO called it an important legal precedent.
- Year
- 2024
- Where
- Germany
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Trademark solicitation scams
- Last reviewed
- 2026-09-20
The facts, as recorded
- The EUIPO filed a criminal complaint with German prosecutors in December 2020 after numerous customer reports.
- Letters carried the heading 'European IP Register' and the subject line 'Data publication from Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM)', the EUIPO's former name.
- Each letter showed a 'total due', a payment deadline and bank details. Only in barely legible small print was it described as a proposal.
- Between November 2020 and April 2021 the defendants received about €200,000 from unsuspecting customers.
- Each of the three was sentenced to one year and ten months, suspended with a three-year probation period, and about €200,000 was ordered confiscated to be used for compensation.
- The EUIPO said a Swedish court had convicted defendants of gross fraud over a similar scheme in 2017.
Why this case matters
This is the European version of the same scheme, and the letters are the lesson. The wording borrowed the name of the office’s former title, and the disclaimer was there in the letter, in print too small to read. The court treated that combination as fraud, not aggressive marketing.
A legal line drawn
The EUIPO describes this as an important precedent: an EU criminal court classifying misleading payment requests to IP owners as fraud. The distinction matters because many such solicitations survive on the technicality that a proposal is disclosed somewhere.
The caveat
The three defendants were convicted and sentenced by the Munich court, and the details here come from the EUIPO’s own announcement and republications of it. Their names were not given in the sources read for this page, so none are used. Sentences were suspended, so none of the three was reported jailed. The €200,000 is the amount the court found unlawfully obtained; this page does not know how many customers paid.
Sources
- Misleading EUIPO invoices: German criminal court finds three defendants guilty of fraud. European Union Intellectual Property Office. Accessed 2026-09-20. Supports: The conviction, sentences, confiscation, the December 2020 complaint, the letter wording and the November 2020 to April 2021 payments.
- German criminal court finds three defendants guilty of fraud for sending misleading invoices to EUIPO customers. Kluwer Trademark Blog. Accessed 2026-09-20. Supports: The EUIPO announcement as republished on 4 October 2024, corroborating the sentences and scheme details.
- EUIPO fraud case: Convictions signal crackdown on scams. Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (CITMA). Accessed 2026-09-20. Supports: Independent reporting of the conviction, the suspended sentences and the roughly €200,000 confiscation.