School in Columbia gets a Cease & Desist letter from Barclays bank

The Barclay School is a progressive school at Columbia, South Carolina. The owner of the school, Dr. Gillian Barclay-Smith, received a letter from the Barclays bank in the United Kingdom that asked her to cease and desist with using 2 domain names she bought.

The domain names are thebarclaymethod.org and thebarclaymethod.info. She bought these domains in October 2012 along with 2 others that were not mentioned in the C&D letter: thebarclaymethod.com and thebarclaymethod.net. None of the 4 domains are currently used by the school. The domain barclaymethod.com remains unregistered.

The owners last name is Barclay so she has every right to use her name as the school’s name and also reflect it at a domain name. That is maybe she found this letter so amusing:
“Actually the day I got the letter I laughed all day,” she said. “I just thought it was so funny that such a huge organization as Barclays bank would, first of all, even know that we exist here in Columbia, S.C.”

The letter’s deadline has since passed but Dr. Gillian Barclay-Smith has already received some help. An intellectual property lawyer has agreed to look over the case for free.