ipr-protection.com and ipr-protection.org spam.

A customer received the following spam today:

From: IPR Protection info@ipr-protection.com
Sent: 13 March 2023 RE:DAC
To: REDACTED
Subject: Trademark registration for REDACTED

Dear Sir/Madam,

Yesterday we received an application for the trademark registration of REDACTED. This application was not filed by you or your company, but by a third party, as we observed from the application forms.

During our screening, we noticed that you have a similar company name, but in a different sector.

Given the fact that your company was the first to be registered, you have the first option of registering this brand name.

If you would rather not have the other party use this brand name, please let us know. In that case, you can register the trademark for yourself.

If you want to register the trademark in the UK, the costs are £550.00 excluding VAT. Your registration will be processed within 24 hours. An European (£1249.00) or international registration (£1775.00) is also available.

Please let me know within three business days whether you wish to make use of this offer. If you do not respond or are not interested, we will approve the other party’s application, which means that they will obtain the trademark rights to REDACTED.

Kind regards,

Jack Walsh
IPR Protection
http://www.ipr-protection.com

Unsolicited and also includes an unsubscribe link in the disclaimer at the end of the email which links to an email marketing campaign application MailWizz. Seems like a strange way to send one off “warnings of application” emails, using mass mailing software!

Their website doesn’t have any postal address, doesn’t give a company registration number

Digging into it more.

IPR-PROTECTION.COM and ipr-protection.org were only registered 28th December 2022.
They only pointed it at a valid website server on 1st January 2023.

However! Things on their website (files uploaded) are dated as far back as March 2022.
Most of the photos uploaded appear to be headshots of people but show high graphical artefacts to suggest the photos have been generated by an AI website “this person does not exist”:

Note the way stray hairs have turned into unusual creases in the background and that the earring doesn’t appear to be quite right.

Going further it appears in March 2022 they went under the name “EU Brand Protection” “eubrandprotection.com” and the EU Intellectual Property office write an article on their website about them:
https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/misleading-invoices

Also highly likely to be related:
ieobenelux.com
trademarkbenelux.com
ids-norway.com
dns-austria.com
dns-eu.net

Also highly likely to be related:
ieobenelux.com
trademarkbenelux.com
ids-norway.com
dns-austria.com
dns-eu.net
dns-eu.org
dns-osterreich.com
dnsna.org
ukraine-donation.org – known scam run from the same web server

Going by some of the language used in their code.. I think the actors behind this spam are Dutch.

I’m no lawyer but it seems unusual to me that a company supposedly offering trademark registrations would issue another company trademark of a brand they ALREADY know is in use! (as they are emailing the victim to ask if its ok).

Plus the AI generated photos of the people on their website, plus the historic company also involved with misleading invoicing / practices.

I would block, report and delete the email and ignore you’ve received it. Certainly do not pay them. If you do want to register your trademark, do it directly with the government at around £170…