DISPUTE CASE, A REAL DOG

The domain Fido.com is registered to B-Seen Design Group Inc. of Toronto. Microcell, of Montreal, operates the national digital wireless phone service under the Fido brand name.

Under new rules through which dot-com domain names are handed out, disputes over those names are to be heard by quasi-judicial arbitrators through one of three domain dispute resolution services.

The process, adopted late last year by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is already a controversial one. The vast majority of disputes have been won by trademark holders, a trend critics say is evidence the system favours powerful corporate interests when it comes to fights over popular dot-com domain names.

In a ruling posted online late yesterday, the arbitrators appointed to hear the fido.com dispute sided with B-Seen, in a decision that seems to suggest those who own trademarks to commonly used words may not automatically see those trademark rights extended into cyberspace.

Representatives from neither Microcell nor B-Seen could be reached for comment late yesterday.

The online home for Microcell's Fido services is, and has been since 1996, at fido.ca. Microcell had registered Fido as a trademark in 1995 and began selling and marketing the Fido phone services in 1996.

B-Seen is a small Web site development firm that registered fido.com in June, 1997, although the site is not active. B-Seen told the tribunal it intends to operate an Internet search directory at fido.com, saying fido is an acronym for 'Find It Directly Online'.

B-Seen said it refused an unsolicited offer of $350,000 for the domain, although it's not clear whom that offer was from. The tribunal's decision said Microcell offered $20,000 for the rights to the domain.

The arbitrators said that Microcell failed to prove its claim that B-Seen was using fido.com in bad faith.

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