In 1979, Montreal buddies Scott Abbott and Chris Haney came up
with the idea for Trivial Pursuit, the board game, apparently
during a game of Scrabble. Horn Abbott was founded the following
year and the game has sold over 70 million units since. Abbott and
Haney became very wealthy indeed.
The company is registered in Barbados and owns various trade
marks and domain names – but not trivialpursuits.net, which was
registered by Ian McMillan of Brighton, England, in 2002. When its
solicitors' warning letter was rejected by McMillan, Horn Abbott
filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO), demanding that he had no right to the name and that it
should be transferred.
But McMillan told the WIPO panellist:
“I purchased the name with a view to
creating a website dealing with the 21st Century’s unique trivial
pursuits, specifically the fact that most aspects of life now
involve a commodity as opposed to individual creativity, from sex
to salvation via surgery and sweeteners.”
He added, "there are more trivial pursuits than can be counted.
There is but one game and appropriately, a singular version of the
common expression has been adapted to fit it."
The web site is just one page at present, with a mention of the
WIPO case – which McMillan describes as "a fine example of a quite
unnecessary and utterly trivial pursuit," adding that more content
will be added, "but at the convenience of my lazy nature."
The panellist decided that bad faith by McMillan had not been
proved, explaining:
“The main reason for that is that, unlike
made-up names like Telstra, the expression 'trivial pursuits' is a
descriptive expression which appears to be in wide use in the
English speaking world, in senses which are unrelated to the
Complainant and its activities.”
He accepted Google search results from McMillan which
demonstrated widespread uses of 'trivial pursuits,' at least in its
plural form, beyond the board game.
Horn Abbott argued that McMillan's "failure to use a domain name
for over two and a half years is sufficient to rebut any argument
that [he] has been engaged in preparations to use the domain name."
But the panellist disagreed.
The panellist stressed that he could not dismiss McMillan's
stated intention as being clearly false, "in particular when taking
into account the descriptive character of the disputed domain
name.”
Accordingly, panellist Warwick Smith refused to transfer the
domain.
