Slashdot Mirror
David & Goliath: game.co.uk vs. GAME Group, PLC
srashdotu writes "The Register reports on a recent Nominet UK domain dispute, which ruled against the current owner of the "game.co.uk" domain in favour of the retail chain GAME Group plc. According to the article, 'The battle for Game.co.uk is unusual and highly significant for two reasons. Firstly, it concerns a generic and common word in the English dictionary -- "game." And secondly, Mr Sumpter [the registrant] was using the domain to run a video-game-selling business.' What makes this dispute different is the generic nature of the domain. 'both Nominet's DRS system and the ICANN UDRP approach have tended to recognise that no one has greater rights over generic names, names with a common meaning, than anyone else, so the owner is entitled to keep the domain. Equally, few cases have seen company pitched against company since they tend to see the sense in steering clear of each others' trademarks,' reads the article. Nevertheless, Nominet found against Mr Sumpter's right to the use the name 'game' (based in-part on Google search results!) and stepped firmly in to trademark territory to make the decision. Mr Sumpter has lodged an appeal, but if the ruling is upheld it could set a precedent that could see many legitimate owners of generic domains facing the threat of losing their livelihoods at the hands of corporate bullies."
No, even more important would be for slashdot et al. to stop using slanderous sensationalism to incite its readers. The world would be a much better place if we all kept a cool head about things and approached dillemmas cooly and rationally.
Perhaps they should teach a temperment class in school...
All true. The kicker was that orignally he was using the game.co.uk domain in an area of business that did not overlap with the GAME group's area of business, so there was no trademark problems.
After the tooing and froing over the price he then set up game.co.uk so that there was trademark confusion - basically he started selling games from the website. Now there was confusion over the trademark.
He was, in my opinion, dinged reasonable for acting in bad faith. If he did not move the game.co.uk website into the area of business of GAME I don't think he would have had any problems.