Two rival caravan dealers from Perthshire engaged in a bitter feud over internet real estate they both claimed was theirs.
Perthshire Caravans, who say they have used that name since 1936, accused arch competitors Dicksons of Perth of confusing potential customers by snapping up the perthcaravans.co.uk web domain.
But Dicksons fiercely denied digitally aping the opposition, insisting that the online address simply “seemed appropriate for selling caravans in Perth”.
Nominet, the body that polices internet domain names in the UK, has now dismissed Perthshire Caravans’ complaint after ruling that the firm, of Dundee Road, Errol, had no trademark on the name and had failed to come up with the evidence needed to prove its case.
Nominet expert Dawn Osborne said Perthshire Caravans, known by its customers as “Perth Caravans”, first lodged a grievance in May after learning that its adversary had bought the contentious web address.
Perthshire said it had been trading under that name for almost 80 years and hosted its online operations on similar domains perthshire-caravans.co.uk and perthshire-caravans.com.
The firm claimed Dicksons was “trying to pass its business off … in order to gain business from web searches”, Ms Osborne added.
Perthshire asserted that it had “had a number of customers phoning to ask if it was part of Dicksons of Perth”, which is based on the city’s Dunkeld Road.
However, Dicksons said it acquired the web address and perthmotorhomes.co.uk, to “avoid confusion with its separate businesses in cars”, after it began trading in caravans last year.
Dicksons insisted that “at no time” did it purport to be associated with the competition. The firm suggested that any phone calls from customers confusing the two suppliers may be due to their close geographical proximity.
Perthshire asked Nominet to force Dicksons to hand over the domain name, claiming it was an “abusive registration”.
However, Ms Osborne dismissed their claim.