The Medway Handyman wrote:

Intellectual property theft?

I'm all for fair competition, but this is unfair - in particular the
deliberate passing off by including "medway handyman" in his own site
content.

It's not "theft", "copyright" nor "trademark" infringement. You can't
steal something you don't remove. There's no copyright protection on a
mere title. You don't (AFAIK) have a registered trademark.

So what you're left with here is "passing off", which in the UK has a
key ingredient of "a misrepresentation which is calculated to deceive".
Now particularly after last week's change that excludes the
Gold/Schiffreen defence (a loophole that computers allegedly committed
forgery on themselves, rather than culpability resting with the author
of the false meta tag) this "medway handyman" meta tag is not merely
similarity, it can only be clear intent to deceive. The purchase of the
Google AdWords covering "medway handyman" are also strong evidence of
this.

Use of the phrase "the Medway handyman", as well as "Medway handyman"
but not "Chatham handyman" or similar is strong evidence of deliberate
intent to pass off as, and to divert web traffic from, the established
site of "The Medway handyman". However this is a legal irrelevance.

If you can find a library copy, Blackstone's guide to the Trade Marks
Act 1994 is the usual law degree text on such things. Relevant case law
is still Lord Diplock's "five elements" of the tort of passing off:
a) a misrepresentation;
b) made by a trader in the course of trade;
c) to prospective customers or ultimate consumers of the defendant's
goods or services;
d) which is calculated to injure the business or goodwill of another;
e) which causes actual damage to a business or goodwill of the
plaintiff or is likely to do so.

Note the following points, as clarified by Lord Diplock:
"misrepresentation" does _not_ require intent to do so. Nor does the
damage need to be actual, merely likely.

So, you have a good case for a passing off action. What's to be done
about it?

You can certainly expect to have the offending content removed. You
also have a reasonable position to demand compensation for your costs
in pursuing this action. Your likelihood of compensation beyond this is
minimal though.

If you choose to pursue this with lawyers, then you have to dig into
your own pockets first and hope to be reimbursed. If your likely
achievement (even with a lawyer) is no more than to have the content
removed, then a simpler initial step could be to act on your own
behalf. Write to the parties concerned and request that they remove the
offending content and pay you some nominal amount to cover the costs,
perhaps £450 8-) These costs may well be waived later in the
process of mutual horse-trading, although you certainly don't need to
put that idea forward yourself. The targets for this letter could be
hard to track down, so I'd suggest the domain registrant Derek
Dowding, and also their ISP who hosts the offending content and their
domain registry. After all, Mr Dowding has declared himself to be a
non-trading individual and I'm sure the domain registry would wish to
correct their records. There are also a number of web sites linked to
the "Kent handyman" site and perhaps they might be able to assist you
in tracking him down? (although Kent Metalworks is the same registrant,
contact email and phone)