BODOG PATENT CASE A DRAW THUS FAR?

19 October 2007

In their first clash in court, neither side gets what it wants


Bodog Entertainment Group, S.A. and 1st Technologies LLC lawyers had their first clash before a Nevada judge this week in their now 7 week old dispute over alleged patent infringments, which led to Bodog being deprived of its domains and whacked with a $49 million default judgement (see previous InfoPowa reports).

Characteristically the more publicly vociferous of the two, Bodog founder Calvin Ayre described this week's court tussle as producing "disappointing results for international fairness."

Bodog lawyers faced off against a highly experienced US patent litigation team from Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, presided over by Chief Judge Roger L. Hunt.

1st Technology's new request for a permanent injunction to halt all Bodog business in the U.S. was denied, as was a more recent "emergency" request to stop any redirection of Internet traffic to BodogLife.com, the new website and domain set up in record time by Ayre's troops to counterattack the confiscation of the group's key domains in the default judgement.

The U.S. federal judge found that 1st Technology's motions for a permanent injunction were faulty and requested inappropriate relief, saying that 1st Technology "failed to satisfy the requirements for permanent injunctive relief and in the Court's view, is requesting relief beyond this Court's power to grant."

"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.

In any event, the defendant in the lawsuit - Bodog Entertainment Group, S.A. - does not have the legal ability to affect any of the relief which 1st Technology sought, so 1st Technology's two motions for permanent injunctions were in many ways moot, Bodog claims.

The court also denied the request to transfer the ownership of Bodog's trademarks to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's request for bond. However, the domains remain out of Bodog's control, too.

Following the hearing, Ayre wrote on 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 websites. 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 continues, adding, "A company has to be running websites to even potentially infringe a patent that 1st Technology claims to cover websites.

"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. Bad luck for them that they tried to mug Bodog. We won the war immediately when we moved to BodogLife.com so effortlessly and we will always be BodogLife.com going forward, but we do want to protect the various Bodog trademarks by getting back control of some of the heisted domain names."

Bodog didn't get what it wanted either, it appears.

Chief Judge Hunt also denied Bodog Entertainment Group S.A.'s motion to set aside the multi-million dollar and domains control default judgment, which therefore remains in force. Bodog plans to launch an appeal against the decision; according to Ayre, 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.

"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."

Legal papers relating to the lawsuit can be found on www.calvinayrelife.com.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa