Business
Fiji Rugby Wins Domain Battle
It's the first case of its kind in the Pacific
The Fiji Rugby Union has won a landmark battle for the right to own www.fijirugby.com as a website address. The address was one of a number registered by a Fiji business, Webmasters Ltd, when a local journalist set it up some years ago.
An international three-man panel appointed by the Geneva-headquartered World Intellectual Property Organisation, in what is the first case of its kind to be decided in the Pacific Islands, ordered the transfer of the website address from Webmasters to the Fiji Rugby Union.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
While two of the panel members ruled in favour of the FRU, one dissented from comments in which the other two members questioned the business ethics of Webmasters, a business owned by journalist Yashwant Gaunder. The panel was unanimous in declaring that the registration infringed legal trademarks owned by the FRU and that Webmasters had no legitimate interest in the term 'Fiji Rugby'.
Two of the three panel members upheld an FRU complaint that Webmasters' registration of the website address was done in bad faith.
A lawyer associated with the case, Fiona Ey said: "As far as I'm aware, this is the first domain name dispute to come out of the Pacific. It sets a precedent in a number of ways, including legal arguments about the niceties of definitions and domain name law and also business practices for Pacific website providers. I imagine that Webmasters will be rather concerned about some of their business strategies and possibly other domain names."
Webmasters had 10 days to lodge an appeal against the ruling in a court in Fiji where the company does business.
Fiji Rugby Union chief, Pio Bosco Tikoisuva, said the ruling was "great news for the Fiji Rugby family and a warning shot to those companies who try to associate with our sport without making the investment we so dearly need."
The FRU recently signed up for more than F$5 million (US$2.9 million) worth of sponsorship. A key element in this, Tikoisuva said, was the FRU's determination to protect the intellectual property of Fiji rugby from companies who were not sponsors but who had been 'hijacking our valuable product'.
Tikoisuva said the FRU attempted to negotiate a settlement over the domain name dispute with Webmasters before initiating the legal action in September 2003. Webmasters had not replied to the correspondence.
'The legal process is always our last resort. But this was an issue that was fundamental to our ability to market Fiji rugby. It was one we felt we could not compromise on." In the ruling, the panel criticised claims made by Webmasters in defending their claim to www.fijirugby.com.
In a section of the ruling, which was made on December 24 but not released until mid January, the panel said it was "left with the distinct impression" that Webmasters has been less than frank and it was forced to draw appropriate inferences from such conduct. The panel noted that in an affidavit Gaunder had denied registering the name so as to divert for commercial gain Internet users to Webmasters sites.
The company said it had registered the name long before the Fiji Rugby Union had begun trading as the Fiji Rugby Football Union. Webmasters approached the FRU offering it with sponsorship payments and IT services for three years but negotiations had broken down.
The panel said the timing of the offer was significant since it was during the lead up to the Rugby World Cup competition.
It was surprising that the company, as a professional website developer, was unable to provide firm evidence as to the time of the registration and earliest use by it of www.fijirugby.com. It regarded the name as being identical to or confusingly similar to the FRU's and found that Webmasters had no legitimate interest in the domain name.
Tikoisuva said the ruling gave Webmasters 10 days to appeal through a Fiji Supreme Court but only on the grounds that they have a trade mark interest in the words 'Fiji Rugby'. If no appeal is lodged, the website address would become the FRU's on February 4.
