Toy Giant Lego wins domain name LegoRus.co.uk
Lego the global toy giant from Denmark contacted Nominet in regards to the domain name registration LegoRus.co.uk which Paul Weston had bought for £10 pounds because of his love for the Star Wars Lego toys, However after Lego asking for the domain and Paul not handing over the domain Lego had to contact Nominet the UK domain organization that runs the .UK registry, They found that the registrant had an abusive registration on the domain name and handed it over to Lego.
Doing a whois using DomainTools.com still show Paul Weston as the registrant of the domain name and the site currently resolves to a standard 1&1 Domain Lander with PPC adverts.
The full story is below but what are your thoughts?
LegoRus.com is registered under privacy and appears to be online since 2009 and that page is directed to JustHost.com with a PPC lander which looks like a domain sponsor ppc lander.
Was this a fair decision by Nominet?
Paul Weston, of Brittany Avenue, Ashby, found himself being approached by representatives of the company after a website he set up was deemed to be infringing copyright laws — bringing a whole new meaning to the term Lego blocks.
Mr Weston’s ‘legorus.co.uk’ was judged to be too close to the website used by the toy giants who subsequently demanded he hand over the name to them.
Avid collector Mr Weston insisted he was simply looking for a place where he could show off his collection that he and his son had amassed when setting up the site.
After creating the site, Mr Weston said he didn’t think much about it until being contacted by the company, who decided the name was too close to the company’s own ‘lego.com’.
Accountant Mr Weston admitted he was astounded at the reaction his site received.
He said: “They got in touch with me to say they objected to me using that particular name. I wasn’t really bothered about the name, and I didn’t mind losing the tenner I had paid to register it, but I was absolutely shocked.
“I was thinking ‘I’m just an innocent collector interested in Star Wars Lego’, it was nothing malicious — I wasn’t trying to set up my own mini Lego shop.”
Despite Mr Weston’s protests, Nominet, the UK’s internet domain name dispute resolution service, ruled he had made an ‘abusive registration’ in creating the web address, and was ordered to transfer the domain name to the company.
Carl Gardner, from Nominet, said: “The complainant has, to my reasonable satisfaction, shown rights in respect of a name or mark which is identical or similar to the domain name. The complainant has, to my reasonable satisfaction, shown that the domain name ‘legorus.co.uk’ is an abusive registration.”