Domain Names
Re Panrix.com Gulberg Singh Panesar v PC Ideas Ltd.
Ian Blackshaw, 23 June 2005
My client had run a very successful computer mail order business in Leeds for several years. He had won all sorts of awards and he had even sold a machine to Buckingham Palace. He carried on business in the name or style of PANRIX which he composed from the first three letters of his surname and the diminutive of the first name of his young son, Rikki,.
My client went into business with his brother and they formed a company called Panrix Electronix Ltd. My client allowed the company to use his trade mark but never assigned it. Things went very well until 2000 when the company was hit by the double whammy of the .com bust and public disenchantment with all things to do with computers through the Y2K non-event. The company suffered cash flow difficulties and had to be wound up. My client tried to start up another company again under a similar name which also used the trade mark but that also encountered difficulty and also had to be wound up.
My client had always had a website under the domain name .panrix.com even when he was a sole trader. When the company was wound up its liquidator appointed an agent who purported to sell the website complete with the .com domain name to another local computer retailer notwithstanding that the trade mark had always remained with the client. The purchaser registered the domain name in the name of Panrix Electronix Ltd rather than itself and unloaded the website which represented that it had taken over or was somehow associated with my client's business.
Following the failure of his companies, my client started to trade again under his trade mark on his own account. he asked the purchaser to sell the name back to him but he refused saying that it was a good source of business. He consulted a well-known firm of local solicitors who advised litigation in the Chancery Division. At no time did they advise him of his remedies under the UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy).
Rikki, whom I mentioned above, happened to spot this website and brought it to his father's attention. He asked me whether there was any remedy that did not involve litigation and I suggested an application to the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre under the UDRP. I settled a complaint and introduced him to patent agent Janet Bray who filed it. The application came on before Mr Ian Blackshaw who found in my client's favour.
Instead of costing tens of thousands of pounds and waiting weeks to come on before a chancery judge the case was settled within days for the filing cost of US$1,500, £350 + VAT for settling the complaint and the patent agent's fee for her time, photocopying and postage.
