Patent and Trademark Institute of America in Contempt?
ConsumerAffairs.com: “FTC Charges Invention Promotion Swindlers with Contempt–Feds Say Scam Took More Than $60 Million from 17,000 Consumers”
A court order issued in 1998 prohibited Julian Gumpel, Darrell Mormando, and Greg Wilson from deceptively marketing invention promotion services, but Gumpel later revived the same scam under the name, “Patent and Trademark Institute of America” (PTI), the FTC charged.
Parties involved:Â “Technical Lithographers Inc., d/b/a Patent and Trademark Institute of America (PTI), United Licensing Corporation, International Patent Advisors Inc., Datatech Consulting Inc., International Product Marketing Inc., Unicorp Consulting Inc., d/b/a/ UNI Corp. Inc, Azure Communications Inc., London Communications Inc., and International Licensing Corporation, Inc.”
The article mentions that “On March 9, the court issued an order to show cause” why the Defendants should not be held in contempt. A hearing has apparently been scheduled for April 30.
However, I ran a PACER search…closest case (same parties) I could find was 1:07-mc-00003-GBL-TCB (Eastern District of Virginia), but that case is listed as “closed.” If anyone has additional information, please let me know.
Related posts:
March 20th, 2007 at 11:53 am
“The Inventors Helpline and its related entities are currently in Temporary Receivership by order of the Honorable Gerald Bruce Lee in the matter of FTC v. International Product Design, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:97-cv-01114-AVB. Phillip S. Stenger has been appointed the temporary receiver. Mr. Stenger and his assistant, Sara Kandelac, can be reached at (616) 940-1190 or by email at phil@stengerlaw.com or sarak@stengerlaw.com.”
Patent and Trademark Institute of America, Roslyn Heights, NY
DBAs:
International Product Marketing, Inc.
Inventorshelpline
Affiliate Fuel
London Communications, Reston, AV
International Product Design
Uni-Corp (United Licensing Corp)
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 am
“Anon” didn’t indicate his source – that notice is posted to PTI’s own website home page.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Ripped Off and Pissed Off
Patent and Trademark of America ripped me off of over $5,000 now what do we do can we get a class action lawsuit against them? please respond
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
im writing about being rip off,to by pti they made give over $3500 to do what everyone else is doing who believe that they were going to help get my invention on the market there rep.shawn carlton assure me that there are companies out there that wounld market my product. when they got the money they did a prelimary patent search they said it was positive go.until i did my own research i found out it was another drawing like mine’s when i spoke to them about it they said to change it up.which i did but then i said i could do this myself.so i told them i wound seek help to get my money back they would just give the run around sending me letters from some tradeshows from other countries which i had to contact those people myself so when i would call it it be the wrong phone number and their websites are in some other languages that i don’t understand.need help.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
i was ripped off too i want my money!
August 14th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
i was ripped off too i want my money! My husband and I after the first few thousand, went out to Reno Nevada where Greg Wilson was located, with the intent to meet the person we were about to give 10,000 more dollars to for a patent. After that encounter, my husband and I agreed that we would wait to gather more information. Greg seemed upset by this, and we left. soon after, another person working for PTI called stating that he was our new contact person, because Greg wilson had recently retired…. we were thankful about not giving him our check, but now we are in debt from the other large amount of money given to this company! i want to know if there will be a lawsuit for the injury and money reimbursed?
Linda Perez, Albuquerque, NM
August 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Yeah, they got me also, however for those of us that paid with a credit card and not a money order or cashier check you can file a claim with the credit card company for failure to provide services contracted. The CC company did not even bat an eye over it. I figured they would likely have a stroke over the amount, yet they did their due diligence and then credited my account back (temporarily) as PTI is entitled to respond. Suprise, suprise they had no comment so the CC company permanently refunded the money. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes, it worked for me.
Mike
Long Beach, CA.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
[...] One inventor pointed out that if you paid by credit card many times you can “file a claim with the credit card company [...]
September 5th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I also have been ripped off by an invention promotion company and I don’t know where to turn. I have already paid them nearly $11,000.00 and still do not have my product that they had agreed to make and send to me. All I got was a virtual reality photo of (supposedly) my product. It has been over 3 and a half years since I paid them and (stupid me) signed an inventor’s agreement with them.
I need help.
Kelly Weber
September 5th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I would like to get in on a class action law suit against this company if anyone knows of one. Please respond! Anyone heard of Davison Design and Developoment?
September 5th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Kelly, at this point I truly feel all these outfits are nothing but scams. If you paid with a credit card you can try to collect back from them (failure to provide services contracted for) but 3 and 1/2 years will likely be to far back. In regards to Davison Design and Development check out the following link http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/155/ripoff0155951.htm
They are once again another scam (IMHO).
Sorry,
Mike
September 15th, 2007 at 7:33 am
I was also taken! If anyone knows more of what is going on, via class action, etc., get back to me.
Dave Koen Minneapolis, Mn
September 18th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I was ripped off too! To the tune of $15,000.00. We were finally fed up with how long it took for the process of presenting our product to supposedly three different companies, which we had to pay for, several hundreds dollars each time
Davison Inventigration Corp. presented it, so we called them to end our committment and we wanted to see what they had developed and asked them to send us what they were presenting!
We know our product can save lives and our prototype worked several times when we were testing it. Everyone that has seen our video presentation of our product wants one. So you can imagine how stoked we were to have this opportunity to have this thing manufactured! This company promised us too that we had a winner.
We even had a backer to help us pay half of everything we have spent!
So before Davison could send us the product we had to sign a waiver that they would not be held liable if the product was damaged or did not work! Well, that right there told us something wasn’t right! Low and behold, the product arrived and it did not work and looked like it cost them about ten dollars to make. The box it came in looked like it cost maybe ten dollars!
We are very interested in any info about gettin our money back too, we payed by credit card too!
September 20th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
hey everyone i to was ripped off $10,000. It goes to tell you that when your gut feeling tells you that its to good to be true, it is. Sadly the ftc. isnt doing enough to help us victums out. If anyone knows if they are please let me know.
September 25th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Does any one know where Pat Ralston Lives email me at morales2313@aol.com
October 1st, 2007 at 9:41 am
I’ve read all these posting; but, nothing about a class action. If anyone knows how to get this ball rolling, please post something for all of us. I lost about $11,000. from PTI. I need my money back.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
After investing a lot of time and money in PTI, my father and I went to New York to meet the “head honcho,” Julian Gumpel. Everything seemed to be legit and we left thinking we would pay for a final patent search and go through with my idea. When I got home my gut told me it was not the right time to go through with it. I’m glad I didn’t give PTI more money than I already had. I want my money back and I’m willing to take action to put PTI away forever.
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:02 am
I was also taken for $10,800.00. Product Advent Developement was suppose to do many things for me but it ended up they only just took my money. I was sent a file with pictures and a little pamphlet but not a info-mercial as was stated. Nor any of the other things that was promised. It was very heart breaking and a financial strain and very embarassing to say the least.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I got the bad feeling after talking with Patrick Ralston back in 2002. I had already dropped $1,400 and read about PTI at http://www.ftc.gov
I requested all my files back and got nothing. About two years later while working on my own patent and product development. I see my invention has just been introduced and is selling. Take a look at “JETNET”, is a RC pool skimmer. I fear that PTI, or a rep.could have taken the idea to another company and made money of my idea. Anyone have any comments?
October 27th, 2007 at 6:26 am
I paid $800.00 approx. for a “new product poufolilo” the palimanary patent search was part of it. In the poufolilo there is a scale for marketabilty of invention, my was 3.5 on a scale of 1 to 5. Anybody else get one of these? My reps. name was/is Jim Jackson, anybody else talk to him? As i’m seeing here, it’s probly a good thing my backer backed out before i signed a agreement for $50,000.00, with a sajested return of 15%, sagerted by Jim Jackson. I would have been on the hook for $750,000.00 to my backer. Has anybody contacted the BBB? I did when i first thought of contacting PTI, at that time there where 30 complaints filed, all but 3 (i think) were resolved, approx. 3 1/2 years ago. Time to check back with BBB. I will post update shortly.
October 27th, 2007 at 6:43 am
Mike, i fear the same thing mite happen to my invention of file with PTI, Ivention submission corp. and any afilleits of PTI. Here’s what i just found at the BBB, URL — http://search.buffalo.bbb.org/codbrep.html?ID=66006252
Artical copied and pasted — General Information
Original Business
Start Date February 1999
Business Started
Locally January 2004
BBB File Opened May 10, 2004
Principal Contact Mr. Timothy Kilburn (Owner)
Complaint Contact Mr. Timothy Kilburn (Owner)
BBB Member This company is not a member
Type of Business Invention & Product Development
Patent Agents
The information in this report has either been provided by the company, or has been compiled by the Bureau from other sources.
Nature of Business
This company offers invention marketing & patenting.
Customer Experience
The BBB opened its file in May 2004. Our file shows disconnected phone numbers, returned mail, or both. The company appears to be out of business. General information is available upon request which may assist you. BBB reports are based on information in our files, and our record of customer experience over the past three years.
Educational/General Comments
Please be advised that the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 says that invention promoters must: disclose in writing the number of positive and negative evaluations of inventions they have given over a five year period, and disclose their customers’ success in receiving net financial profit and license agreements as a direct result of the invention promotion services. Customers harmed by a failure to make required disclosures or by any false or fraudulent representation by the invention promoter can sue to recover statutory damages of up to $5,000, or actual damages. The court can also triple the damages if it finds the violations are intentional or willful.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will accept complaints on invention promoters though the Office of Independent Inventor Programs, U.S.P.T.O., Washington DC 20231. The Office will then forward the complaints to the invention promoters, who will have 30 days to respond. Both the complaints and responses will be available to the public. Their website is: http://www.uspto.gov.
The Better Business Bureau provides this general information along with over 100 other alerts that help consumers make better buying decisions. Check them out for free on our web site at http://www.upstateny.bbb.org
Additional Information
This Business Operates under the Names Invention Submission Corporation
Movers and Shakers, Inc.
Addresses 125 Wolf Road Suite 503-2, Albany, NY 12205, Albany County MAP
Phones (518) 435-0009
(518) 438-7285 (FAX)
Reported on Saturday, October 27, 2007
As a matter of policy, the Better Business Bureau does not endorse any product, service or company. BBB reports generally cover a three-year reporting period, and are provided solely to assist you in exercising your own best judgment. Information contained herein is believed reliable but not guaranteed as to accuracy. Reports are subject to change at any time.
The Better Business Bureau reports on members and non-members. Membership in the BBB is voluntary, and members must meet and maintain BBB standards. If a company is a member of this BBB, it is stated in this report.
© 2007 Better Business Bureau, Inc.
I’m kinda at a lose of what to do about it??? Any clue’s? Advice?
February 19th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Hey everyone, I also had dealings with PTI from back in 2006 to now. PTI did not one thing to market my invention and I feel like all of you. However, the patent attorney they referred me to did file all the necessary documents to the USPTO. I received confirmation from the USPTO that my invention was not going to be denied. I kept a detailed journal of all transactions but never received any phone calls from anyone representing PTI from Nov ‘06 to this day. I requested an itemized statement from PTI to show where all my monies were being used but they refused to do so. We all learn from our mistakes and another scam will not get what it deserves from the legal system. Yes, if there was or is a class-action lawsuit in the making, please forward the information for all to utilize.