Free Postcode Lottery being forced to change their name

tain

Apparently the People's Postcode Lottery (paid lottery site) aren't happy that there's a free service out there, so they're suing hard. The big tell tale here is them not accepting a proposed name change, which is a pretty disgusting business practice.

While it might just be a name change for now, it sounds like that's actually not the final legal action they're planning on taking, and they have other challenges (which Chris can't post) which might totally ruin the entire site!

Chris' full blog post:

A paid postcode lottery service called People’s Postcode Lottery are suing us for trademark infringement and “passing off”. We’ve pointed out that we are doing neither of those things, but despite our innocence and best efforts to try and resolve this with them, we are going to change our name, from FreePostcodeLottery.com, Free Postcode Lottery (and FPL), to something else.

PPL aren’t just suing Free Postcode Lottery Ltd, they are suing me personally too. On June 19th a court summons was delivered to my wife, at my home, while she was holding our six week old baby. For the sake of transparency, we’ll publish the summons in full, as soon as we’re legally able to. Until then, all I can share is that PPL have one year to “call the action” to start the legal battle and we don’t know whether they’re bluffing or whether they will call it even after we change our name.

Why are we rolling over? They were here first. Well, as least with the literal application of the “postcode lottery” concept, despite the term having been in use in the political media for longer. They also have a lot of money and, because of their legal obligations, are required to give a lot of money to charity. This gives them a lot of leverage.

According to Wikipedia, the founder and CEO of their parent company Novamedia, Boudewijn Poelmann, created his postcode lottery in The Netherlands in 1989. In 2005 they launched a pilot of People’s Postcode Lottery in the North of England, before moving into Scotland in 2007 and Wales in 2010.

I had the idea for a postcode lottery in September 2007 when I heard the term on a Radio 4 report about the NHS. I was also inspired by milliondollarhomepage.com, and how advertising on the internet makes things free. I’ve never been a fan of lotteries, and gambling in general, because the consumers always lose out, so worked on the concept of a daily, ad-funded lottery that scaled the prizes along with the audience. Distracted by a very enjoyable career in web development, I didn’t get around to building it until early 2011. I set out with the lofty goal of building FPL to be unlike anything that had come before it, a lottery without losers, a real chance to win money for free.

This story has been told countless times on the radio, TV, podcasts, newspapers, and blogs, because it is the truth. It seems that PPL either haven’t heard it, or don’t believe it. In any case, they clearly think that it is in their company’s interests to have us gone, or at least renamed beyond recognition. I doubt they have considered how many new customers have found them through searching for us, or that they could learn something from how we do things.

We only ever refer to ourselves as “Free Postcode Lottery”, “FreePostcodeLottery.com”, or, after people join us on the site, “FPL”. We are proud to be free, and being free is what stands us out from the crowd. It’s what makes us innovative. We’re free, they are not. The first thing you see on our homepage is “We give away £800+ per day FOR FREE”. Why would that convince anyone that this is where they sign up for £10 per month direct debits, in the hope of receiving a giant cheque for tens of thousands of pounds? Put simply, it wouldn’t.

Our last letter made an offer to change our name to PickMyPostcode.com, but as you can probably tell from this post, this was not accepted by PPL. To my mind, this shows that they are not concerned about the alleged confusion between the two brands at all. They are attempting to bully me into handing over the concept and business that I’ve created and dedicated the last 7 years to building. If their real motivation is to turn FPL into a recruitment engine for their gambling service, then we have a duty to protect our members from such allegedly predatory behaviour.

All of this has angered and distressed me, the team, and my family, so much so that my gut is telling me to fight. The problem is, that there is no guarantee that we would win, and frankly, we would rather any big payouts go to our members and not lawyers. We have spent nearly a year, and a great deal of legal fees, failing to come to a sensible arrangement and agonising over what to do. We know that name changes are nearly always hated, and getting it wrong could damage us far more than PPL think they can. Still, we’re going to try, and we really hope you get behind us. As is the way with FPL (or whatever we’re called) we want to include you in the discussion and decision. We’ve got some very smart people helping us, and whatever emerges on the other side will have the best chance of winning your approval.

I’ll be back soon with some ideas for new names. In the meantime, do let us know your thoughts. If you’d like us to keep you up to date on developments you can join our Messenger chat list, or email us here.

Thanks

Chris and the FPL Team x

I'm considering starting a Go Fund Me page!

tain

Sorry if this has already been posted elsewhere or is in the wrong place - I did have a look before I posted!

Silverjan

I have posted on the MSE Facebook page as to whether they are aware of this matter. In doing so, I would hope that this will come to the attention of Martin Lewis, however, in view of any legal implications, it may not be possible for him to comment. I have also advised a certain national newspaper as it is a story of human interest in view of the personal summons on Chris Holbrook. The same restrictions may also apply.

tghe-retford

Just my own opinion, of course, and as far as I am aware no action has been taken yet, but as a name change is not being considered as a solution, I would be more sided to think that the People's Postcode Lottery believes that it has the exclusive right to run a postcode lottery as opposed to just the claim of trademark infringement and "passing off" that is being claimed. The fact that the Free Postcode Lottery is free is an annoyance to them but a moot point. I suspect nothing less than a cease and desist will suffice.

Other competition organisers should watch if the People's Postcode Lottery does go ahead with legal action, it could have consequences far beyond the Free Postcode Lottery. My other concern is what happens in the face of a public backlash. There is a decision later this month to a vlogger who has been convicted under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and a Scottish law and I suspect the judge has delayed sentencing to see how the public would react (considering how there have been newspaper articles decrying the supporters of the convicted man threatening and abusing the judge). In turn, there could be a legal precedent set this month where a punishment on an individual could increase dependant on the reaction of others. That could influence any future court action against FPL if the PPL decide to use the rhetoric on social media from FPL players against FPL.

xLuckyxAshxWinsx

After reading this yesterday it did make me wonder if any of the other free postcode lotteries that have folded recently was due to this. FPL has amassed a huge following and rightly want to fight it but I wonder if the others felt the only option was to shut up shop

sleepyjones

I'm not really up on "business" or business law but, Free Postcode Lottery is a Limited company so the People's lottery wouldn't have any rights to go after an individual shareholder or director (because there is more than 1, if it was a sole-shareholder it would be different) ... they could pursue the company but not an individual director.

There are currently 3 directors of Free Postcode Lottery so it would not be "just" to pursue one director since all company decisions must be shared between said 3 directors. So, I don't think they really have a leg to stand on and they're just doing this as a form of intimidation.

If there was only 1 director then this would be different, see the Grenade Energy ruling :
https://www.briffa.com/blog/suing-company-directors-for-ip-breach/

glennevis

Chris Holbrook is the registrant for the domain name, that could be why the action is against him.

sleepyjones

Possibly ... but it's not illegal to buy a domain name, no matter if it infringes on someone's copyright or not. It would be more about what you decide to put on that domain name and even though he bought the domain name it is registered to Free Postcode Lottery Ltd, so that shouldn't matter. You'll often get a secretary or a Website developer buying domain names for their clients, you can't hold them responsible for the content on the site.

To me this doesn't make sense ... the People's Lottery folks are either just trying their luck (I'm sure their legal team know this is just intimidation) or something else is going on, doesn't really make sense to me.

tain

I don't know the structure of the company, but it could be that he registered some aspects of the business before it was a limited company, and maybe even retained that personal ownership of them after the company fully formed. I'm totally speculating here though.

Or it could be that they're saying he directly stole their idea/name and as he did that before any limited company was formed, you can't then hide behind a limited company.

Either way, that's a mighty stretch by any legal aspect. You cant legally protect your USP from imitation - that's the entire nature of a competitive market. It just sounds like the usual common factor - enough legal power and money to force a small company to fold.

I hope that all partners of the People's Postcode Lottery are very aware of their practices, and that people are active in making them aware.

Silverjan

We need all the help we can get so please sign to show your feelings about this travesty

https://www.change.org/p/people-s-postcode-lottery-save-our-free-postcode-lottery-e61d13f5-b99c-4bda-af6e-bfcab594b100

bertiewhite

Silverjan wrote: »

We need all the help we can get so please sign to show your feelings about this travesty

Who's "we"? Are you connected to FPL?