• UK NEWS

    The Defiance of the Lambs

    The British Airports Authority is responsible for the running and maintenance of the UK’s main airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow and Edinburgh. They are widely known by their acronym BAA and indeed own various UK trade mark registrations for this acronym, as well as stylised forms of the acronym, in various classes.

    In view of the short and convenient nature of their acronym, the Authority obviously looked towards the domain name baa.com when deciding to enter the world of e-commerce. Unfortunately, they found that two individuals, Michael Lawrie and Tom Bourke, had beaten them to it, having registered the domain name in 1995 ostensibly as a site devoted to sheep and woolly resources. Neither Mr Lawrie nor Mr Bourke has any connection with aviation, although the latter does claim (at the website) that he was once struck with mild food poisoning whilst wearing a purple Shetland jumper at Heathrow airport.

    Having discovered the baa.com site, the Authority entered into negotiations with the two individuals for its transfer. In early 1999, these negotiations appeared to be proceeding quite well with a price in the region of a few thousands of pounds apparently being agreed between the parties. At this point, the negotiations seem to have become stalled, although they continued in a somewhat desultory manner until October, when the parties once again appeared to reach agreement in principle, on the basis of a modest payment for the site.

    Just when the deal seemed settled, however, Mr Lawrie was contacted by a third party offering a potentially lucrative strategic alliance involving the baa.com site. It was at this point that Messrs Lawrie and Bourke seem to have realised the true potential value of their site, having read reports that the BBC had purchased bbc.com for an alleged £200,000 and that the business.com site had been sold for an alleged US$7.5 million price tag. They therefore appear to have increased their selling price of baa.com to just over £2 million.

    In response to this, the Authority issued a writ against Messrs Lawrie and Bourke claiming that their activities constituted both trade mark infringement and passing off. The case continues.

     

    Comment

    Although the British Airports Authority own UK trade mark registrations for BAA that predate the creation of the baa.com website, they may find this a difficult action to win unless they can establish an element of bad faith on the part of Messrs Lawrie and Bourke. The case is not on all fours with the earlier One in a Million case (1999 FSR 1) where a cybersquatter was successfully sued for trade mark infringement and passing off and forced to transfer the domain names to their rightful owners.

    In that One in a Million case, the cybersquatter had registered well known UK marks such as Marks and Spencer and British Telecom, marks which are seen exclusively as trade marks and which do not have another existence as ordinary English words. In the case of baa, it may be the acronym of the British Airports Authority, but it is also a well known English dictionary word, being the onomatopoeic representation of a sheep or lamb bleating. This will no doubt cause the plaintiff considerable problems in this action, as will the sheep related use of the baa.com website that the two individuals have made for some time.

    This case is but one of the many legal actions involving e-commerce that are now being widely reported, in both the legal and the general press. Reports of further cases in the domain name area can be found in both our new e-Trade Marks section and our Court Diary section.

    Note: Much of the background in this report has been taken from the baa.com website. It therefore represents only one side of the story so far.