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Bodog takes on "patent trolls" in court
By Sarah Polson
About seven weeks after losing control of its domain names because of legal issues in the United States, Bodog Entertainment was in court to address the case on Thursday.
The issues on the table as Bodog Entertainment went head-to-head with 1st Technology LLC, also known as patent trolls to those of you who've been following the case at Calvin Ayre's blog, included a motion from Bodog to set aside the default motion in 1st Tech's favor and motions from 1st Tech for a permanent injunction against the company.
The initial case was a lawsuit filed by 1st Tech which claims the downloaded software used by Bodog customers for gaming violates patents held by the company.
According to Calvin Ayre, Bodog Entertainment founder and CEO, a mix-up that caused the official lawsuit notice to be served to an office in Costa Rica meant that Bodog never officially answered or defended itself against the charges.
When that happened, a default motion was given to 1st Tech awarding them $48.6 million and control of the Bodog domain name.
Since then all Bodog Entertainment Web sites have moved to BodogLife.com, including the Bodog Poker site.
At the hearing Thursday at the U.S. District Court for the Nevada District, Bodog's lawyers presented their argument to Chief Judge Roger L. Hunt to try to get the default judgment reversed. While their attempt was unsuccessful, the motions filed by the plaintiff were also denied.
1st Tech was requesting a permanent injunction to halt all Bodog business in the United States. It had also recently made an emergency request to stop any redirection of Internet traffic to BodogLife.com.
The judge found that 1st Tech's motions for permanent injunction were faulty and requested inappropriate relief.
"Plaintiff failed to adequately address the four-prong test that would satisfy the burden to obtain a permanent injunction," the judge wrote in his decision.
The court also denied the request to transfer the ownership of Bodog's trademarks to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's request for bond.
Ayre has remained confident as information has come out about the lawsuit and action has been taken. He wrote in his blog:
"The Costa Rican company they sued Bodog Entertainment Group, S.A., does not itself provide online services nor did it ever operate or own any Web sites. It's not even directly part of the Bodog Group of Companies, as it was structured as a third party service provider, and it was shut down operationally a year ago (end of September 2006).
"It merely provided some call center data entry and domain management services for various entities that use the Bodog name or provide online entertainment services for Bodog. It was our intention to get the various Bodog domain names back from this company and we were in the process of this when they were hijacked."
Ayre added that a company would have to be running a Web site to even potentially infringe on a patent that 1st Tech claims to have.
"Though 1st Technology and its lawyer bosses are classic patent trolls, this has never been a patent case; it has always just been a legal system 'stick up' where the objective was always to grab the domain names and try to force a monetary settlement - the legal equivalent of a back-alley mugging," Ayre said.
He said Bodog won the war though when they moved to BodogLife.com and continued business easily. But the company would still like to protect Bodog's trademark by getting back control of some of the heisted domain names.
Bodog plans to appeal the ruling from the judge denying that the default judgment be set aside.
"We regret that the judge in this case decided not to let us open these legal issues, so in addition to the inevitable appeal, we are also intending to open up new legal fronts to ensure that this important issue is given proper judicial review in the U.S.," Ayre said.
"This is the first time of which we are aware that a non-U.S. company with zero operations or assets in the U.S. has had its domain name seized with no prior notice simply because it was using a U.S.-based domain name registrar. We do not believe that domain names should be allowed to be defined as assets to be seized for purposes of collecting on a judgment."
Story
By Sarah Polson
About seven weeks after losing control of its domain names because of legal issues in the United States, Bodog Entertainment was in court to address the case on Thursday.
The issues on the table as Bodog Entertainment went head-to-head with 1st Technology LLC, also known as patent trolls to those of you who've been following the case at Calvin Ayre's blog, included a motion from Bodog to set aside the default motion in 1st Tech's favor and motions from 1st Tech for a permanent injunction against the company.
The initial case was a lawsuit filed by 1st Tech which claims the downloaded software used by Bodog customers for gaming violates patents held by the company.
According to Calvin Ayre, Bodog Entertainment founder and CEO, a mix-up that caused the official lawsuit notice to be served to an office in Costa Rica meant that Bodog never officially answered or defended itself against the charges.
When that happened, a default motion was given to 1st Tech awarding them $48.6 million and control of the Bodog domain name.
Since then all Bodog Entertainment Web sites have moved to BodogLife.com, including the Bodog Poker site.
At the hearing Thursday at the U.S. District Court for the Nevada District, Bodog's lawyers presented their argument to Chief Judge Roger L. Hunt to try to get the default judgment reversed. While their attempt was unsuccessful, the motions filed by the plaintiff were also denied.
1st Tech was requesting a permanent injunction to halt all Bodog business in the United States. It had also recently made an emergency request to stop any redirection of Internet traffic to BodogLife.com.
The judge found that 1st Tech's motions for permanent injunction were faulty and requested inappropriate relief.
"Plaintiff failed to adequately address the four-prong test that would satisfy the burden to obtain a permanent injunction," the judge wrote in his decision.
The court also denied the request to transfer the ownership of Bodog's trademarks to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's request for bond.
Ayre has remained confident as information has come out about the lawsuit and action has been taken. He wrote in his blog:
"The Costa Rican company they sued Bodog Entertainment Group, S.A., does not itself provide online services nor did it ever operate or own any Web sites. It's not even directly part of the Bodog Group of Companies, as it was structured as a third party service provider, and it was shut down operationally a year ago (end of September 2006).
"It merely provided some call center data entry and domain management services for various entities that use the Bodog name or provide online entertainment services for Bodog. It was our intention to get the various Bodog domain names back from this company and we were in the process of this when they were hijacked."
Ayre added that a company would have to be running a Web site to even potentially infringe on a patent that 1st Tech claims to have.
"Though 1st Technology and its lawyer bosses are classic patent trolls, this has never been a patent case; it has always just been a legal system 'stick up' where the objective was always to grab the domain names and try to force a monetary settlement - the legal equivalent of a back-alley mugging," Ayre said.
He said Bodog won the war though when they moved to BodogLife.com and continued business easily. But the company would still like to protect Bodog's trademark by getting back control of some of the heisted domain names.
Bodog plans to appeal the ruling from the judge denying that the default judgment be set aside.
"We regret that the judge in this case decided not to let us open these legal issues, so in addition to the inevitable appeal, we are also intending to open up new legal fronts to ensure that this important issue is given proper judicial review in the U.S.," Ayre said.
"This is the first time of which we are aware that a non-U.S. company with zero operations or assets in the U.S. has had its domain name seized with no prior notice simply because it was using a U.S.-based domain name registrar. We do not believe that domain names should be allowed to be defined as assets to be seized for purposes of collecting on a judgment."
Story
