
Jokers’ Masquerade has been the owner of domain names star-wars.co.uk,?star-wars.uk?and?starwars.uk since 2003. By using these domains, it redirected people to its Star Wars fancy dress section. However,?Lucasfilm???owned by Disney???has held a UK trademark for the name Star Wars since 1984. As part of its acquisition deal, it gained the intellectual property surrounding the franchise as well.
So, in July 2014, the company approached?Jokers’ Masquerade and asked?to have its domain names ? something which parent company Abscissa.com reused to do.?It claimed that it had only started using the domain when Lucasfilm had let its registration lapse in 2001. After being contacted by Disney lawyers,?Abscissa?offered to transfer its starwars.uk domain to the company if it could continue using starwars.co.uk and star-wars.co.uk to sell legitimate Star Wars-branded merchandise. Disney refused and instead took the fancy dress retailer to court. Read more about Disney:- Why investors see Disney, and its consistent great performance, as “stock magic”
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