Overseas-owned
Yellow Holdings sued for an interim injunction to crush the negotiating
position of Johanna Klos who is looking to sell the domain name www.yellow.net.nz
following the death of her husband.
Husband Henk registered the domain name
in 1998. He died in 2016. The domain name has never been used, lying
dormant. Yellow Holdings has been unable
to register the recently available .nz domain without the Henks’ consent
because yellow.nz is considered too similar to yellow.net. Negotiations to sell yellow.net to Yellow
Holdings failed. No agreement could be reached on price. Yellow Holdings then sued alleging fraud and
passing off. It said there was a risk
that activating the yellow.net site could confuse the 1.7 million customers who
access Yellow Holdings online directories every month.
Justice Brewer ruled it is unlikely the
Henks acted improperly back in 1998 when registering yellow.net. While the words Yellow Pages were established
by then as a brand, the word Yellow alone was not. But now that Yellow as a brand is established
there is potential confusion should the yellow.net site be activated. An interim injunction was granted blocking
Mrs Klos’ use of the domain name. Few
buyers will be interested in purchasing the yellow.net domain with a legal threat
from Yellow Holdings lurking in the background.
It is the only likely buyer. The
price depends on how much Yellow Holdings is willing to pay for yellow.net in
order to get access to yellow.nz.
Yellow
Holdings Ltd v. Eurobelt Ltd – High Court (29.06.16)
16.098