After almost five years since the launch of the Star Wars Collector's Archive, it is with great sadness that I must announce that I am closing down the Archive. Today, I received a letter from the law firm of Darby & Darby indicating that their client, Toys R Us, Inc. feels entitled to the secondary level domain name, toysrgus.com. Apparently, they feel that their registration of Toys R Us as a US trademark for toys (in addition to various other "R Us" trademarks for other specific trades) grants implicit ownership of any secondary level .com domain beginning as TOYSR__.COM or ending as __US.COM, regardless of business trade.

If you would like to see a copy of their letter, go here. Other than what's stated in the letter, I don't know much else about the case. Lisa Pollard, the attorney at Darby & Darby representing Toys R Us, can be reached at lpollard@darbylaw.com.

We may be back at some point (perhaps under a new domain) if this legal matter is resolved. My hope is that this domain name dispute will be resolved swiftly, but it's hard to predict. It has been a wonderful past few years, and I wish everyone the best of luck in their collecting endeavors.

lopez@halcyon.com
January 28, 1999