Josip Heit has been denied a European trademark application for “The Hong Kong Telegraph”.

German lawyers Irle Moser filed an application on Heit’s behalf for The Hong Kong Telegraph trademark on July 10th, 2023.

Heit (right) is listed as the application owner, care of GSB Gold Standard Corporation through a Dusseldorf address.

GSB Gold Standard Corporation is the parent company of GSPartners, a fraudulent investment scheme that collapsed in December 2023.

Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited filed an opposition to Heit’s application on October 31st, 2023.

Telegraph Media Group Holdings owns several EU trademarks, primarily pertaining to their “The Daily Telegraph” and “The Sunday Telegraph” newspapers.

Despite The Telegraph publications being widely recognized brands across the UK and Europe, Heit demanded prior use evidence of Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited’s trademarks.

Seeing as The Telegraph publications have been in print since 1855, this evidence was easy for Telegraph Media Group Holding to produce.

Heit argued the provided evidence was “not genuine”, however this argument was rejected by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

In comparing Telegraph Media Group Holding’s already registered trademarks, EUIPO went on to find

the contested sign presents a stylisation that is nearly identical to that of the earlier marks.

The typeface, letter spacing, and general layout of the verbal elements are highly similar, producing a closely comparable visual appearance.

There is a likelihood of confusion on the part of the English-speaking part of the public.

EUIPO subsequently denied Heit’s The Hong Kong Telegraph trademark application on September 24th, 2025.

Costs were awarded to Telegraph Media Group Holdings, totaling 620 EUR.

The Hong Kong Telegraph was a Hong Kong newspaper founded in 1881. From Wikipedia;

In 1916, The Hongkong Telegraph was brought under the control of the South China Morning Post, Ltd., which also published the South China Morning Post, another English-language Hong Kong newspaper, founded in 1903.

Heit registering defunct newspaper name trademarks in Europe is part of a broader campaign to spread misinformation.

Heit started with several defunct German newspapers; Berliner Tageszeitung, Berliner Tageblatt and Deutsche Tageszeitung. After which Heit focused on various defunct publications abroad.

The typical setup sees Heit set up a website bearing the defunct publication’s name and then apply for a trademark. The website is populated with syndicated news, sprinkled with promotional press-releases.

GSPartners press-releases were typically published on Heit’s defunct newspaper websites. These were however deleted following a regulatory crackdown on GSPartners in 2023.

Heit would go on to settle GSPartners securities fraud with North American regulators in September 2024.

In March 2024 BehindMLM documented misinformation published on “The Fort Worth Press”.

The actual Fort Worth Press was a Texas publication that went out of business in 1975. An impersonator website set up used the same template as Heit’s other defunct publication websites.

Irle Moser filed a European trademark application for The Fort Worth Press in September 2023. In March 2024 Liudmyla Starosud was listed as The Fort Worth Press trademark owner.

Starosud was the registered owner of GSMedia, who on its website described itself as “a media division of: GSB Gold Standard Corporation AG”.

In May 2024, Starosud has been replaced as The Fort Worth Press trademark owner by “JJJ Holding Investment in Commercial Enterprises & Management”.

JJJ Holding Investment in Commercial Enterprises & Management, a Dubai shell company, also owns the trademarks for

  • Bombay Durpum – a defunct newspaper published in Bombay from 1832 to 1840;
  • The Albany Gazette – a defunct New York newspaper that ran from 1771 to 1845; and
  • The Morning Chronicle – a defunct London newspaper that ran from 1769 to 1865

Heit obfuscating trademark ownership through JJJ Holding Investment in Commercial Enterprises & Management appears to have generally occurred in May 2024.