Notice_The Confirmation of Intellectual Property Scam

You are probably aware of the Nigerian email scams by now. But have you gotten this one from China? A seemingly responsible company in China has noticed that someone is trying to register your domain. Doing their due diligence they are looking to contact the rightful owner to confirm your partnership.

Here is a copy of my latest letter.

Subject: Notice__The Confirmation Of Intellectual Property Date: Mon 6/29/2009 8:16 PM

Dear Sir/Madam:

This is the China Internet Service Provider, who mainly duty for domain name and the Internet Trademark registration work.

Here, we have some important thing confirm with your company .On June 29th 2009,We received an formal application ,one company named "Meihua Investment Group"
want to register "yourdomain" as their CN/ASIA domain names and Internet Trademark on Internet .

After our initial examination, we find the domain name and the Internet Trademark applied for registration are the same with your company's name and trademark. One point
need you to confirm that whether the alleged Meihua Investment Group is your business partner or distributor in Asia?

If like that,we will finish the group's application. If the group is not you partner, please let the someone who is responsible for this matter to contact us as soon as possible to deal
with the matter. Thank you!

Looking forward to hearing your reply!

Best regards!

Alice Xia
Auditing Department:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
China Internet Service Provider:
Yiguan(Shanghai) IT Co.,Ltd
Tel : 0086-021-6296 2950
Fax: 0086-021-6296 1557
Mail:alice@dnisp.cn
Web:www.dnisp.cn
Mail No.:200030
-----------------------------------------

They want me to hire them to dispute the evil Meihua investment company. Little do they know that supposedly another nefarious company, Z-S Media, already has my domain in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. in 2008.


Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. We have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application. One company which called "Z-S Media Corporation." are applying to register "YourCompany" as internet brand and CN domain names “www.yourdomain.cn & www.yourdomain.com.cn & www.yourdomain.net.cn & www.yourdomain.org.cn & www.yourdomain.hk & www.yourdomain.com.hk & www.yourdomain.tw & www.yourdomain.com.tw” on March 31, 2008. After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand applied for registration are as same as your company's name and trademark.These days we are dealing with it, hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company has not authorized the aforesaid company to register these, Please contact us as soon as possible. In addition, we hereby affirm that our time limit for dissent application is 15 days. If your company files no dissent within the time limit, we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by "Z-S Media Corporation.".

Best regards,
Jimmy Liu
Senior Consultant

T: 0086-21-52715980
F: 0086-21-52715978
Web-site: www.mips-china.org.cn
Address:11/F, Building A, Oasis Plaza, 137 Bailan Road, Putuo District, Shanghai, China

When we wrote Mr. Jimmy Liu back in 2008 to say we have no affiliation with Z-S Media Corporation this is the response we got.

From: jimmy.liu [mailto:jimmy.liu@mipinternetsolution.org.cn]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 8:29 AM
Subject: URGENT - dispute of network domain name and trademark

Thank you for your reply. Domain name registration is open in China, as a registration organization, we have this obligation to inform you because what "Z-S Media Corporation "wants to register refer to your intellectual property rights and trademark, it will effect you badly in developing in China. According to the related rules, you have the priority to register, so we want to ask you whether you need to protect? We hope you can give us a clear response. If you need, I will send you an application form and quotations. If not, we will register for "Z-S Media Corporation".
Look forward to hearing from you.

________________________________________
jimmy.liu
2008-04-01

I never wrote Mr. Jimmy Liu back but according Alice Xia my domain is still available so I guess I needed worry until another company tries to register our domain in China.

Constant Contact

For the longest time we have been emailing members and past customers for our website. Even though it is purely an opt in feature, I am sure some people forgot about signing up. As such they have reported us a spammers. Unfortunately, this put us in the a bit of a pickle since service providers have started to block or sort our emails spam automatically. More problematic are emails internally are being marked as spam such as an email that I sent to my colleague.

To avoid this situation in the future I have signed up for the services of a third party email marketing company called Constant Contact to distribute our email newsletters. We are currently running a small trial with a sample of our mailing list to see the response.

The pricing of such as service depends on the number of emails you send and the features. In our case our volume requires a USD$30/month fee and if we want to add more than 5 images we would need to upgrade and pay another USD$5 per month.

Hopefully, this sort of email marketing service will prove to be worthwhile. I will be monitoring the click through and coupon usage in response to our small trial.

Digital Printing

Recent developments in technology is giving small business more options. Traditionally, printing labels was a limiting factor to launching your own brand or product. In order to obtain a "shiny" label that looked professional you would have to spend $500-800 dollars and order a minimum quantity in the thousands to make it cost effective. However, with digital printing this does not have to be the case.

I am not talking about printing them yourself at home but the fact that more and more printing companies have digital presses. By combining the digital technology with some of the traditional techniques the finished label is very comparable to what consumers expect from a label. Namely, the labels can be made with that shiny coating and professional die cut. With no plate charges, the limiting factor is the artwork charge. As with any printing company, the artwork charges depends on what you supply them. If you give them clean artwork your charges will be minimal. You can then print 1, 100, 1000, 10000 labels.

Here is an example from the natural products industry. I want to launch my in-house brand of Milled Flaxseed granules. I have a supplier who will supply me 500 bags without label.

Option #1 - Flexo Printing:
Artwork charges $135
Prepress plates $245
Printing 2000 labels $145
Total $525

- with Flexo you need to do a minimum of 2000-3000 depending on your printer. $0.26 per label but I will have 750 extra labels.

Option #2
Artwork charges $135
Printing $125
Total $261

- with digital I can order 500 labels only. $0.52 per label but my initial investment is half.

Another benefit to digital is that I can combine product labels in one run as long as they are the same size label. Imagine that I wish to have 3-4 products under my private label. This is all possible. I will also be able to print the batch and lot number on the label each time I print. No more hot stamping.

So as you can tell I am excited by the opportunity that digital printing technology presents my company. Now it will be up to me to figure out some clever ways to use it to my advantage.

Managing Diabetes

Diabetes is a lifelong condition where either your body does not produce enough insulin, or your body cannot use the insulin it produces. Your body needs insulin to change the sugar from food into energy. There are three main types of diabetes:

* Type 1, where the body makes little or no insulin;
* Type 2, where the body makes insulin but cannot use it properly; and
* Gestational Diabetes, where the body is not able to properly use insulin during pregnancy. This type of diabetes goes away after the baby is born.

Nine out of ten people with diabetes have Type 2. While there is no miracle cure for diabetes, diabetes can be managed.

You can prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes by making some simple lifestyle changes.

Top Choices for Managing Diabetes

- Control your weight - being overweight or obese can contribute to developing Type 2 diabetes. The WellBetXR Revolutionary Appetite & Blood Sugar Regulator Program with PGX? is a meal replacement drink mix that contains a well-researched blend of nutrients that can balance blood sugar levels between meals. This is an ideal way to create the sense of satiety (fulness) while reducing the absorption of calories.
Each serving contains 22 grams of protein, from high quality whey protein, only 14 grams of carbohydrates and 5 grams of dietary fibre. For breakfast or lunch, this nutrient packed mix provides 234 calories and a whole range of nutrients found in a well-balanced meal.

- Lower Blood Pressure - Omega-3 EPA 400: DHA 200 softgels are Canadian processed and super concentrated, pharmaceutical grade, Webber naturals? fish oil products and is standardized to provide 400mg of EPA and 200mg of DHA. Omega-3 promotes good cardiovascular health.

- System support - High anthocyanin containing products like Natural Factors BerryRich 500 mg caps are important in managing diabetes as diabetics are predisposed for circulatory disease, diabetic retinopathy and diabetic neuropathy. For example, diabetic retinopathy is a serious complication of diabetes and can cause blindness if not controlled. In retinopathy the body tries to repair leaking, damaged capillaries by overproducing proteins. Not only do anthocyanins prevent capillaries from leaking, they also prevent abnormal protiens. Anthocyanins may also help to lower cholesterol and slow cognitive decline.

- Be physically active - Being active lowers blood glucose levels. we can't put this in a bottle but www.natvd.com convenient mail order service gives you more time to enjoy walking, cycling, swimming or time at the gym.