The name of the site of a thousand-year-old village is threatened by a trademark claim

^{Plymouth Herald Photos}
The company Millennium & Copthorne International Limited (MCIL) in an official letter notified the organization of the inhabitants of the village Copthorn ( Copthorne - West Sussex, United Kingdom) that the name Copthorne, which is used in the domain name Copthorne Village Association, violates the rights to use the registered trademark. We are talking about the domain name copthornevillage.org , which is used by the association website. MCIL lawyers claim that the site may be misleading for Internet users and create a false opinion that the company has something to do with the site.

The case is notable for the fact that Copthorn, which has a population of 5,000, boasts a thousand-year history. The village was first mentioned in the " Book of the Last Judgment " as early as 1086 and is a typical example of Old England, but with asphalt roads, an airport and an ancient site . MCIL, which owns a network of hotels around the world and 33rd hotels, the name of which includes the word pthorne, opened another one here. A group of managers responsible for protecting the company's trademark discovered the existence of the site copthornevillage.org and announced to its administration that it "... may damage the trademark owned by MCIL".

The villagers decided not to let everything go to the will of the company's lawyers and sent them an indignant letter, in which they very convincingly told about the 1000-year-old history of the village and that "the company could claim the name Cpthorne only with the help of a time machine." As a result, the leadership of MCIL changed its opinion about a possible lawsuit to transfer the domain name to the ownership of the company, and, as they always say in such cases, announced that a letter of complaints to Copthorn was sent by mistake.

The practice of protecting trademarks and copyright by companies often acquire at least a strange connotation. So about two months ago, the music label demanded that Google remove links to a long list of programs, including operating systems and browsers, on the grounds that they could be used to download and listen to an audio file of an unknown group.