The vexed issue of domain names - which determine the web site
addresses companies can use - has become a little clearer in recent weeks.
A court case in the UK, between two companies called Pitman, was resolved
when the judge ruled that it was a case of first come, first served.
This sets an important precedent for the UK, which until now has not
tested this area of legislation. The first-come, first-served ruling only
kicks in when both companies already have a legal right to use the name in
their normal field of business. In the case of the warring Pitmans, these
fields were very different and did not clash.
A second case making its way through the UK courts concerns two companies
called Prince - the UK’s Prince plc versus Prince Sports Group Inc of the
US, maker of outsized tennis racquets, among other things. The latter
wanted the former’s ”prince.com” domain name but the former counter-sued
for something known as threatened trademark infringement. As Revolution
went to press, the case was continuing.
UK companies can expect to see a lot more of this transatlantic sparring,
particularly concerning the use of ”.com” domains, which have become a
standard domain name format in the States.
Mark Henderson-Thynne, domain name manager for Netnames, a UK company
which specialises in this area, was a key witness in the Pitman case.
He warns of a scramble to register domain names. ”It’s now moved on to
generic names, such as ’business.com’, which was reportedly sold for
$150,000.
These are attractive to web site owners because they are very easy to
search, but they’re also attractive because they can’t be trademarked in
the non-internet world,” comments Henderson-Thynne.
There are now more than 1.1m ”.com” domain names and 55,000 ”.co.uk”
names, which is the highest of any of the country-specific titles.
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