DIAL-A-CAB v RADIO TAXIS (LONDON) - THE EPILOGUE? |
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And just when you thought the court case result had died a death! I've
just finished reading the December issue of Mountview News which I thought
was surprisingly interesting - although that may well have been due to the
numerous mentions of Dial-a-Cab! It starts with RTL Chairman Geoffrey Riesel telling his subscribers (and yours truly) about: That Court Case, What Really Happened...? Mr Riesel's first conclusion was that we (DaC) were complimenting RTL by trying to mislead web-using customers into believing that we were Radio Taxis (London). This, claims Mr Riesel, "...speaks volumes about how much we are coveted as being the pre-eminent organisation in our industry." Sorry, sir, but I disagree. When DaC registered the name 'radiotaxis.com' - one of several names connected to the worldwide taxi industry that we bought at the time - Radio Taxis (London) were still learning how to send emails! They are still trying to catch us up and have finally embarked on an on-line booking service. Mr Riesel does admit that DaC offered to exchange the domain name for what he describes as "valuable equipment." Well, I'd like to know exactly what happened to this "valuable equipment," because reports claimed that this old equipment that came from their old radio system was useless to them - even though it would have helped us enormously in the short term. I'm sure that reported statement |
purported to come from the RTL boardroom of "we'd rather throw them in
the Thames than let Dial-a-Cab have them,"  are
untrue, after all, we're all friends, aren't we...?Mr Riesel ends his page-long anti-DaC response with the peace offering of being ..."hopeful that we can now bury the hatchet for the sake of the industry." He obviously forgot to tell his Head of Operations Alan Franks about this new relationship, because Alan has had a dig followed by a page-and-a-half article by Michael Seifert, who starts by informing the RTL membership that he has been their solicitor for 20 years and thinks it "...appropriate that I set out the facts of this dispute." Perhaps not surprisingly, his article mirrors that of the RTL Chairman except for some surprising references about the Judge. He starts by saying how close the Judge thought the case was, how he took more than 10 weeks to come to a decision, how he said that appeals "...would have a real prospect of success" and how DaC were sailing "close to the wind." What Mr Seifert fails to mention in any detail is that with all the "success" that RTL enjoyed in the High Court, incredibly they still lost the case and he then goes on to criticise by claiming that "...the weaknesses in the Judges logic are numerous." |
Perhaps we near the point of the article when towards the end we read that
"...on the basis of expert legal advice, the Board of Radio Taxis were
absolutely right to pursue this case in order to protect the member's
interests in preventing the company's trading name from being abused by
direct competitors." He adds that the fact of RTL losing "...does
not detract in any way from the correctness of that decision." Well I'm sorry, Mr Seifert, but I disagree. You didn't lose badly or well or any other way. You lost because when it came to it, RTL's case was weaker than ours and in all honesty, speaking as someone with no legal experience, even I could see that you had no chance. RTL accepting their legal advisors advice because it was "correct" is, in my humble opinion, just a cop out. After all, what more right did Radio Taxis (London) have to this domain name than Owner Drivers Radio Taxi Service or the numerous companies around the world that incorporate the words 'radio taxis' in their name? Only Dial-a-Cab had the foresight to realise its worth as a directional guide to anyone around the world wanting to read about radio taxis - because like it or not Mr Seifert, what DaC are about is the world of radio taxis,. And by the way, Geoffrey Riesel's words of being..."hopeful that we can now bury the hatchet for the sake of the industry," were hardly backed up by Mountview News then giving yet more space to the solicitor who acted - and presumably lost - for RTL, Razi Mireskandari. The letter - the first to be published in living memory by Mountview News - was published by just two trade magazines having been sent to all including Call Sign. Alan Fisher |
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