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."

Re:Fuck Corporate Bullying!

[JimmehAH]

That's how it looks now.
I had a quick look at the archived site [archive.org] and it looks like it was a perfectly legitimate online store.

when being slashdotted..

[chalkoutline]

The guy knows what he's doing, that's for sure, even though the site itself is down he's filled the homepage with ads in anticipation of traffic. He's a real entrepeneur!

Re:when being slashdotted..

[Blue Ray]

It used to be a legit store (go to archive.org and see what it looked like up 'til a few weeks ago) but since the Nominet ruling he's closed the store. there was a message on the site explaining why he'd closed (pressure from Game retail group, IIRC) and since he's just been a elc & play.com affiliate.

Re:when being slashdotted..

[Blue Ray]

Here's a link to the archive.org snapshot [archive.org]

So he's used a domain which he's owned for ages to sell games and make some money. Big deal. The logo's different and couldn't be confused in a hundred years. If Game Group wanted it so bad theyshould have offered him a reasonable amount, instead the offers seem pretty pathetic - less than a year of game.co.uk's profit!

TBH, the 1,000,000 figure suggested to Game group is probably a bit low, given 60,000 annual profit and taking into account how much further prof

Trademark?

[El_Servas]

I know I haven't RTFA, but still,
How can you trademark a generic english word like "game" and try to enforce it?

It would be like banning the word from being used anywhere else... hell, they are doing it with that domain name... "That word is mine!".

One word

[alexo]

> How can you trademark a generic english word like "game" and try to enforce it?

Apple.

Re:One word

[arkanes]

Which is trademarked in a context where the word is not generic. You won't get far trying to trademark your Apple(tm) brand apples. Trademarking "GAME" might be fine if you make, say, cars.

Re:Trademark?

[ReVMD]

I just hope that proctor and gamble don't go after my domain.

It'll be a wipe out.

Re:Trademark?

[Blue Ray]

you can't trademark a generic work, but you can trade mark the "mark" - the font, color, design, etc or the logo or brand.

OTS Summary of the article

[TuringTest]

It's a loooong article! ,-)

Domain dispute puts question mark over UK ecommerce
By Kieren McCarthy (kieren at kmccarthy.eclipse.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 16th February 2005 12:34 GMT

A dispute over ownership of "game.co.uk" could have significant and far-reaching effects on e-commerce in Britain.

The domain, which comes under the control of private company Nominet, was awarded to Game plc in January following a complaint that the owner, Garth Sumpter, was misusing it. Mr Sumpter, a consultant for the games i

Stupid Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Proving once again that America is a playground for massive corporations, and has no real respects for the rights of the little guy the way we do here in Europe. What you colonials really need to do is learn to hold your government accountable for...

Oh, wait...

Bugger.

Never mind.

If you RTFA

[madaxe42]

You'll actually see what has happened here - over the course of some 4 years, the guy who owned game.co.uk (and had done so since 1995) was in correspondence with GAME, who approached him wishing to buy the domain. He then kept on agreeing on a sale price, and then upping his price, until he started demanind in excess of £1,000,000 for the domain, and then came up with some spiel about GAME being in competition with a fictitious company for the domain. He should have accepted their offer of £1,000,000 and ran - his perjury has cost him all.

Re:If you RTFA

[kenthorvath]

If you RTFA...

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...

Re:If you RTFA

[kenthorvath]

Here's another person expecting teachers to do a parent's job. What is it with you looney lefties?

Parents cannot teach what they have never learned. If the mass of the population is ignorant, and ignorance breeds ignorance, then it is up to the educated few to enlighten.

Re:If you RTFA

[pmc]

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.

Re:If you RTFA

[MarkGriz]

Maybe so, but FTFA

1. Procedural Background:

The Complaint was lodged with Nominet on 8 November 2004....

3. The Facts:

1. The Complainant is a company engaged in the retail sale of computer software and hardware including computer and video games through high street outlets under the mark and style GAME and online from the domain name game.net. It, and its predecessor in title Game Plc have been in business under the mark GAME since 1990.

From 1990 to 2004 is 14 years. Did these guys *just now* hear abou

So?

[rsilvergun]

It's his domain, and it's a generic term. Just because he played some nasty hardball with it, doesn't mean it's not his. Yeah, he blew it, but not because he's a jerk. He blew it 'cause the Big Guys realized it'd be cheaper to corrupt the system than pay him off. It's still fucked up is that the Big Guys even had that option.

Gateway

[Quill_28]

Didn't gateway do this same thing years ago with gateway.com?

Typical

[petrus4]

I wonder how much Game group paid the judge. Is there anyone left on the planet who is sufficiently naive or insane as to believe that there is any validity whatsoever in the claim of equal treatment/representation under the law? The legal system is one of the main reasons why I hardly ever leave my bedroom...in my mind having virtually anything to do with offline society these days is suicidal.

Re:Typical

[Snowmit]

The legal system is one of the main reasons why I hardly ever leave my bedroom...in my mind having virtually anything to do with offline society these days is suicidal.

LOL!!!11!! So true! I liek 2 spend my time on teh bastion of sanity, reasoned discussion, friendly compassion and OFMG respectful appreciation that is teh Intarnet!11!!!1!one!!1111

Sex dot com

[boingyzain]

Wow, next thing you know, they'll be fighting over sex.com. Oh, wait...

Awesome

[MarkGriz]

Who doesn't love a good Davey and Goliath story [daveyandgoliath.org]

Re:Awesome

[imnlfn]

Yeah, I clicked on the link for the article without closely reading the title with visions of "Davey and Goliath vs. Gumby and Pokey", or some such thing, dancing in my head.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered what it was really about!

Well, I *did* RTFA

[Apparently someone]

I cannot tell you just how peeved this article has made me.

But, I've learned a lot by reading the complaint and the verdict.

1) If you have the money, you can try to buy a domain that exists from someone who may already have it.

2) If you can't buy that domain, and you have the money for it, you can sue for the domain.

3) If you have an extraordinarily large amount of money, you can win the rights to a generic noun in the dictionary (as used in a domain name), even when someone else clearly owns said domai

RTFA Slashdotters

[flibuste]

I have read the ENTIRE thing.

I started reading slashdot comments.

Funnily enough the second doesn't match what the article says. Or maybe it's usual

The court judgement says that basically the guy had all the rights to register game.co.uk, the use he made of it consisted an abusive use of a domain name, since he started a game reselling business after being informed of GAME's plans to rebrand and go on the web.

And for the english-challenged: GAME did NOT offer 1 million pounds to buy the name. The guy did and they refused the offer

As much as I'd like it be the other way around, the guy did a bad attempt at taking advantage of an honest issue brought by GAME. They offered him a lot of cash and all he did he start a business to fool people in thinking it was related to GAME somehow. I hate big corporations against Davids, but this time, Goliath is probably right.

Re:RTFA Slashdotters

[Sri Lumpa]

"and what the hell else are you going to do with the domain name game.co.uk"

Well, I guess it could be a site about animals that are hunted or he could sell non-video games.

Game means more than just video games, otherwise you wouldn't need to use the word video to differentiate video games from other games.

Re:RTFA Slashdotters

[flibuste]

You misread AND you don't understand what your read:

In February 2002 the Respondent stated to the Complainant that the Domain Name was worth in excess of £30,000 but by June 2003 this figure had risen to £1,000,000. Although the Complainant did not purchase the Domain Name in June 2003, by August 2004 the Respondent's intermediary was again quoting the price of £1,000,000 and by October 2004 the Respondent himself indicated that he was planning to change the nature of his business and

Man-that-sucks.com

[infonography]

But seriously I this could affect me as I own a few real words.