Baker & McKenzie vs 11-year old in Narnia IP row
A couple from Edinburgh being threatened with a law suit by Baker & McKenzie over their son’s 11th birthday present has received offers of Pro Bono advice from three law firms, The Lawyer can reveal.
A couple from Edinburgh is being threatened with a law suit by Baker & McKenzie over their son’s 11th birthday present.
Gillian Ferguson and Richard Saville-Smith bought the narnia.mobi email domain name in 2006, so that their son, an avid fan of the Chronicles of Narnia books by author CS Lewis, might receive emails at that address direct to his mobile phone.
Richard Saville-Smith said that a firm from England, Ireland and Scotland respectively have offered to assist the Scottish family pro bono, but that while he was grateful for the offers, he was confident that he and his wife could take on Bakers alone.
“Once you get over the initial shock of the complexity of the rules and the number of pages, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) rules are fairly clear - the burden of faith is on the them. We’re not being intimidated by the world’s leading law firm.”
Saville-Smith would not name the three firms in question.
However he added that the 128-page legal complaint, prepared by the New York-based partner Lisa W. Rosaya was “not very clever.” He said: “They’re throwing jargon around.”
But Baker & McKenzie, representing the CS Lewis Company, owner of the Narnia author’s estate, claims that the couple acted in “bad faith”.
According to Saville-Smith, the document issued to the couple claims that “the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith”, and “narnia.mobi domain is being used for the Respondent’s commercial gain”. The father denied that he, his wife or son stand to gain commercially from ownership of the domain name.
Saville-Smith pointed out that the CS Lewis Company failed to take advantage of a sunrise period in which to buy up the dot mobi domain name.
“Bakers issued a client alert in 2006 about the dot mobi domain names. They had a three-month period to buy it and they screwed up. If they do take my son’s domain name away we’ll go through this all again.”
Baker & McKenzie declined to comment.
Readers' comments (22)
Anon | 16-Jun-2008 4:17 pm
Bullies
As I understand it, the people who registered the domain name in Scotland are just Narnia fans and hobbyists, there’s no evidence of anything that amounts to abuse. There are many homage and fan sites. To me it sounds like Baker & McKenzie might have jumped the gun. Sometimes a rather heavy-handed approach is taken right away when the other side is considered ‘bulliable’. It could be that with a gentle-handed approach one could solve it.
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Ben Williams | 16-Jun-2008 6:56 pm
Pro Bono
Is there any truth in the rumours that Aslan & Overy are offering some pro bono representation?
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Gerry Peters | 16-Jun-2008 7:08 pm
Prince Caspian would not be impressed.
It would seem to me that if the C.S.Lewis estate can afford to hire a law firm to write a 128 page legal document explaining to an 11 year old boy that he is trying to profit at their expense, could surely hire someone for a lot less money to keep their domain names in order.
The profit to me is from the 11 year olds that buy the books and watch the movies for which you should be grateful.
Until the first movie it was rare for me to find anything on a book shelf relating to Narnia. Now all of a sudden because of profit we now see the estate for what it is. Here is another prime example of how to twart a childs dream, good show, I'm impressed.
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James, Bristol | 16-Jun-2008 7:09 pm
Suggestion
Perhaps they should get some help from White Witch & Case.
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Michael Thouless | 16-Jun-2008 10:48 pm
Baker & McKenzie vs 11-year old in Narnia IP
I would have to ask; if the bullies are to be believed they failed or were too arrogant to pay the £70.00 themselves. Now if an organisation the size of the CS Lewis Company cannot put there hand in there pocket or the petty cash box for this piffling amount they do not deserve to own this name. Let their arrogance be a lesson to all bullies.
Legitimately purchased in the open, my vote is for the boy/father to be declared the rightful owners. Let us see if the governing body has the courage to support the minnows.
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SVU | 17-Jun-2008 7:26 am
Only claiming to act in good faith
Well, a quick look at the actual content of the web-site in question does not really support the position taken by the Scottish familty in this case. It doesn't look like your typical fan site.
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Anonymous | 17-Jun-2008 7:43 am
Plonkers
128 page submissions.. sounds like approximately £3000 of work to me. Add on initial advice to clients and it is probably £4000-5000 spent already.
If the kid is a Narnia fan then I would imagine tickets to the world premier and a shed-load of goodies would have been enough to secure transfer.
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Anonymous | 17-Jun-2008 9:30 am
Good story
I thought the defendant seemed pretty clued up until he described Baker & McKenzie as the world's leading law firm...
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Lucy | 17-Jun-2008 10:41 am
Quite
Can't agree with the last post ('Plonkers') more. Very tactless of both the CS Lewis estate and Bakers to have taken the scary lawyer route, and not very cost effective either. They should have just offered him some Turkish delight.
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Leo | 17-Jun-2008 10:44 am
Aslan
Have you ever seen Susan Aslan? Very appropriately, she's bright orange and has a mane. Like Gerry Halliwell crossed with Lionoe from Thundercats.
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Jake | 17-Jun-2008 1:37 pm
Why doesn't he try...
...Prince (Caspian) Evans?
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Dawn Treader | 17-Jun-2008 2:31 pm
Narnia
CS Lewis must be turning in his grave. Not very Christian, is it?
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Barbara Cookson | 17-Jun-2008 4:07 pm
Nosy Parker
Narnia.mobi is parked with Sedo which means someone is using NARNIA - a registered community trademark to earn money. Whether its indicating origin is far more debatable, but it is taking advantage of the reputation. Did we think its unfair advantage?
Take away the 11 year old and this is just the Adwords problem that Ben Moshinsky has been writing about elsewhere.
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Caspian | 17-Jun-2008 5:47 pm
Deja vu?
This Narnia story seems oddly familiar - has it been chronicled elsewhere?
Sorry.
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Anonymous | 17-Jun-2008 5:55 pm
128 pages for a WIPO panelist to digest
Can't imagine that a WIPO panelist receiving 128+ pages in a UDRP is going to be very happy about having to review all of that in return for a $750 fee. That's bound to get their back up. B&M should know better.
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Domain name guru | 17-Jun-2008 8:30 pm
Narnia
The actual complaint is only 12 pages long. As you know, or should know, when you site a case in a UDRP, you are required to attach the entire case and if you cite numerous cases, it all adds up!
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Anonymous | 18-Jun-2008 8:49 am
SEDO parking
yep it does go to a parking site now. I would be interested to find out whether it always did though, or whether this was changed recently with all the press attention. Richard Saville-Smith, the registrant of www.narnia.mobi, also appears to be the registrant of 78 different .com domains. Seems quite a lot for the standard man on the street....
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Gordon Harris | 18-Jun-2008 10:51 am
Cynicism
There are serious cases of patent infringement then something like this comes along and it makes people cynical. It brings IP enforcement into disrepute.
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Dave | 19-Jun-2008 4:05 am
Very Cynical
Who buys a present for their child and waits two years to give it to them? IMHO the father is a domain speculator (with over 40 domains) who is using the child angle for sympathy.
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Le Tom | 19-Jun-2008 12:36 pm
Pots and Kettles
Gordon, i respectfully think you are way off the mark. Nobody knows what IP is until something like this comes along. The legal field is dull enough as it is, this is a story, grow down.
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Gillian Saville-Smith | 23-Jun-2008 10:36 am
Your suspicious minds...
Goodness me, what suspicious minds, as the song says! We haven’t tried to or made a bean! The domain is not ‘parked’; you are seeing a ‘holding page’ created as common practice by internet registration companies, and not listed with any search engines. Here is the statement from the registration company going to WIPO: “I am happy to state on behalf of Fasthosts that the redirection of the domain name narnia.mobi to a holding page maintained by [parent company] Sedo was not the result of a request on the part of Richard Saville-Smith. I am also happy to confirm that Richard Saville-Smith has not sought to benefit and has not benefited financially in any way whatsoever from this domain name through this redirection.” Clear enough now?!
We’ve never sold a domain name in our lives. If it’s anyone’s business, we have quite a number of domain names as we have quite a number of businesses and interests – e.g. we have run a media consultancy exclusively for charities for ten years – we are launching an internet poetry venture – and a major new children’s charity – along with various related to me as poet and columnist – and, of course, we bought some light-hearted ones for presents to allow amusing email addresses. Not very sinister. The Narnia domain was available when the new ‘.mobi’ domains went on general sale to the public as the CS Lewis Company failed to register it in the private three month period given to all trademark holders. Being just nine when we bought the domain, we noticed his May birthday this year was around the time of the second film - and if you can’t see why an email address ‘atNarnia’ is magical for a boy who is a fan of the books, then you’re not a fan yourself… We’d like to say how we have been overwhelmed with offers of legal support and thanks SO much to all of them. Especially the fantastic Matheson, Ormsby, Prentice who are kindly sorting out our amateur Response for Monday’s deadline. Gillian Saville-Smith
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James, Bristol | 23-Jun-2008 9:23 pm
Suspicion justified!
Yes, they haven't made 'a bean' yet, they were clearly hoping for a nice pay-off from the CS Lewis Estate!
Why would they register 'thequeen.mobi' and 'uspresident.mobi' as well if not in the hope of making 'a bean' at a later stage? Funnily enough, that is precisely what domain speculators do! I can't believe there are lawyers falling for the child angle and offering free help, quite depressing really.
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