It's the same thing here in Germany, some guy has the rights on the slogan "G-Mail...da geht die Post richtig ab" and he won against Google.
I like @gmail.com more than @googlemail.com, but I would have thought that they checked in beforehand if they could use the name...
well, doesn't matter for me, I got my @gmail.com-address, and if you want a gmail.com, just use a proxy.
Maybe Google thought they'd shut up if they paid them.
(Btw, I've been off some time so i ain't up-to-date. should i remove my sig ?
)