Anyone who applies for a trade mark must regularly pay official fees to the competent trade mark office. However, there are currently letters in circulation addressed to owners of a trade mark recently registered at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) which obviously do not originate from the DPMA itself. In the meantime, we have received several obviously unfounded and misleading requests for payment from unknown senders asking for payment of alleged official fees for a trade mark application that has already been filed. Indications that this is not an official letter are, for example, a bank account of the company abroad, such as in Poland (PL), Cyprus (ZY), Tunisia (TN) or Bulgaria (BG) or a pre-filled bank transfer form. In such cases, no payment should be made under any circumstances, but consideration should be given to bringing the matter to the attention of the law enforcement authorities. The DPMA itself also warns against such demand letters in a recent press release(PM of 22.11.2019).