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From: doug Sherman
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 10:44 AM
To: Tucci, Elizabeth
Subject:
Hi my name is Doug Sherman can you tell me if any money has been collected from PTI yet
Thanks Doug

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By Dave S.: “For Release: September 6, 2007″:

Invention Promotion Swindlers Ordered to Pay $60 Million in Scheme that Defrauded 17,000 Consumers
The operators of an invention promotion business, which a judge called “one grand con game to take money away from consumers,” have been ordered to pay $60 million for violating a 1998 court order.

“By changing the name of their company, these individuals thought they could continue to make false promises and take inventors’ money, but they didn’t get away with it,” said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This scam should also remind inventors to question the assurances of promotion firms. No one can guarantee an invention’s commercial success.”

Under the 1998 order, Julian Gumpel, Darrell Mormando, Michael Fleisher, and Greg Wilson were barred from misrepresenting the services they offered to amateur inventors, but they revived their scam under a new name, the Patent & Trademark Institute (PTI). For a fee of $895 to $1,295, PTI promised to evaluate the marketability and patentability of inventors’ ideas, but its evaluations were almost always positive and were not meaningful, according to the FTC. For a fee of $5,000 to $45,000, PTI’s clients were offered legal protection and assistance to obtain commercial licenses for their inventions. They also were told that PTI would help them earn substantial royalties from their inventions, but PTI did not help consumers license their inventions, and clients did not earn royalties. (more…)