Family fights Narnia case

A Scottish family has become tangled in an intellectual property dispute with the estate of the author C.S. Lewis after it bought a Narnia Internet domain name for their 10-year-old son as a birthday present.

Richard and Gillian Saville-Smith, who live in Edinburgh in Scotland, paid 70 pounds (US$140) to buy the domain name Narnia.mobi from the Internet registration company Fasthosts in 2006 so their son could have it as an e-mail address.

They were asked to return the domain name to the C.S. Lewis company, the owners of the author's estate, but refused. The family then received a 128-page legal complaint filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization in Switzerland.

"We'd been saving it as a surprise for our little boy's birthday to coincide with the release of the Narnia film," said Mrs Saville-Smith, referring to the British release of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."

After the 2005 release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Prince Caspian" is the second in a series of films based on the Narnia books by Lewis, with its British premiere scheduled for Thursday this week.

Admirers

"Our whole family are great admirers of C.S. Lewis and he must be turning in his grave about all this," added Mrs Saville-Smith, who is an award-winning Scottish poet.

"To try to ruthlessly snatch away a gift intended for a young boy who loves his Narnia books is unbelievable."

The family must reply to the WIPO by June 23, with the organization expected to make its decision within a month.

"We've never made any money out of this domain and have no interest in doing so," Mr Saville-Smith, who is an accountant, said.

"We don't have the money to hire intellectual property lawyers, so we're saying 'help!' One thing for sure is that our response won't be 128 pages long, it will be more like 10 pages - we're looking at quality rather than quantity.

"Even after WIPO makes its decision that's not the end of it, because either party can appeal that verdict," he said.

"If WIPO decides in favor of the C.S. Lewis estate, that would be the end of it for us. However, I don't expect they will, because their case is flimsy and we've done nothing wrong."

No one was available for comment from Baker & McKenzie, the law firm that represents the C.S. Lewis estate.