"Trademark scam targets businesses"

By Mark Daly BBC Scotland investigations correspondent

"A trademark scam which caused havoc in the United States has reached Scotland, hitting small companies and threatening to put them out of business, a BBC investigation has found."

On its website the BBC reports that small companies in Scotland are being targeted in a "trade mark troll" scam which has already swept the US. The "trolls" typically register trade marks in the name of an existing and unsuspecting small business and then demand money to licence or sell the mark back to the original company. It appears that the troll in question, "Never Give Up", has so far mainly targeted small juice and smoothie bars and tries to profit from the fact that the owner's of small businesses are often not aware that simply trading under a name for a significant amount of time creates common law rights in a mark.