March 2002
Data Supplies & Accessories Ltd has been selling Philips dictation equipment for approximately seven years.
Having been successfully trading online for 4 years, it is decided to set up a seperate website for Philips dictation, and the domain name philipsdictation.co.uk seemed to best describe what we were offering our clients.

October 2002
Philips International BV (Philips) offered to purchase the domain name for £600.00. After taking legal advice, we decided that we could not sell this decriptive domain name for such a low price, and it was made clear from the outset that this was not an abusive registration.

November 2002
Philips decided to make a complaint against us to Nominet, which we rigourously defended, pointing out that if we had wanted to be abusive against Philips there were many other ways that Philips had overlooked, and would have been much more effective. We were simply selling and promoting Philips dictation products.




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December 2002
Philips decided not to respond to our reply, and therefore this went to Informal Mediation, however a resolution could not be met.

13 January 2003
Philips were told by Nominet that if they wanted to proceed with the claim against us, that they had until 27 January 2003 to respond. This would involve an expert decision with a fee of £750 + VAT to be paid. They were told that should they not repsond that the case would be closed.

January 2003
We felt sure that this was the end of the matter, and decided to look for a new domain. We eventually decided on pocketmemo.com, as this seemed to be a generic term that many people used, such as the term dictaphone. We therefore registered the name.

28 January 2003
It seemed that we were through the storm, as Philips had not responded, and Nominet confirmed that the case against us was now closed. Victory however was shortlived.

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July 2003
We received a letter, that to this day has disturbed us. We were told that an expert decision was made on the 11 July 2003, that the domain name philipsdictation.co.uk be transferred to Philips.
How was this so, if Nominet had closed the case? To this day we have not been given a satisfactory answer. The only option available was to appeal along with a fee of £3,000.00 + VAT, or issue legal proceedings.
We felt it better to allow the transfer and spend our money building and promoting pocketmemo.com

October 2003
After having spent literally thousands of pounds on new literature, promotional items, and mailers we received a letter from Philips asking us to stop using the domain name pocketmemo.com!
Despite our protestation, they insisted, and we felt we had no option but to comply. It has never been our intention to upset them. Rather than giving in to them, we felt we did not want to spend a single penny that could end up in their favour, in decisions being made without our consultation.
dictationsupplies.com was born, and is still trading successfully today. A big thank you goes out to all our loyal customers, for staying with us throughout this time, and we look forward to many years ahead, supplying quality, affordable dictation equipment, including Philips dictation!


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