 The company managing the estate of CS Lewis wants the domain name |
An Edinburgh couple have lost a battle with the estate of Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis over a web domain name. Richard Saville-Smith said he paid �70 for the name www.narnia.mobi so his son Comrie, 11, who is a CS Lewis fan, could use it for his e-mail address. But the company which owns the rights to the late author's work lodged a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization. It ruled that the domain name should be transferred to C.S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd. The WIPO panel said Mr Saville-Smith had registered and was using the domain name in bad faith.  |  We have not done anything illegal or wrong, we were perfectly entitled to have this domain name |
The CS Lewis company was not available for comment. Mr Saville-Smith's wife Gillian Fergusson said she was shocked by the decision. She said: "It should have been pretty straightforward. "They had to prove that we had made a bad faith purchase, that we had been using it to make money. "We provided very clear statements from the internet registration company saying that we had not tried to make any money and yet somehow it has just simply ignored the evidence." Made available She said she thought the WIPO had decided to transfer the domain name because the company has other Narnia trademarks. "It did not really matter what we said," Ms Fergusson added. "They should have to prove it but unfortunately they ignored the evidence and did not accept that an e-mail address for a child was a legitimate use." In 2006, companies had a three-month period to express interest in .mobi website names before they were made more widely available. | This panel cannot, in the circumstances of this case, find the respondent's intended use as asserted to be legitimate |
Ms Fergusson said: "We have not done anything illegal or wrong, we were perfectly entitled to have this domain name. "There was three months in which they could have registered this. There was a private period for any trademark holder to register any .mobi domain name when they went on sale in 2006. "We did not buy ours until after that three-month period had expired and it was open for public sale." In its judgement, the WIPO said it could not think of any "plausible" reason why Mr Saville-Smith would think he could use the Narnia mark for an e-mail address. It said it was "equally disturbing" that he went on to register the domain names freenarnia.com and freenarnia.mobi after the complaint was filed. "While the respondent (Mr Saville-Smith) denies making any active use of the disputed domain name, the passive holding of a domain name can be considered as bad faith where it is not possible to conceive of any plausible actual or contemplated active use of the disputed domain name that would be legitimate," it said. "This panel cannot, in the circumstances of this case, find the respondent's intended use as asserted to be legitimate."
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