Popular Online Poker Site Changing Names Due To Patent Dispute
from the what's-a-domain-got-to-do-with-it? dept
Shawn Patrick Green writes "As if online poker weren’t embattled enough. Popular online poker site, Bodog, was forced to change its name to NewBodog.com after they failed to show up at a patent-dispute trial in Nevada, prompting the judge to suspend its domain, Bodog.com. The site has now “permanently” changed its name to BodogLife.com and the founder, Calvin Ayre, says that he refuses to pay the guy that brought up the overly-broad patent dispute, who is claiming $48 million in damages.” If you’re interested, the patent in question can be viewed here. It hardly seems unique or innovative. If you asked someone how they’d design a system for prioritizing the display of certain content over a network, plenty of engineers would have come up with the same sort of solution. The bigger question, though, is why a judge would take away a website’s domain name in a patent dispute?
Filed Under: domain names, online poker, patents
Companies: bodog
Comments on “Popular Online Poker Site Changing Names Due To Patent Dispute”
defenceless
The patent is so broad that you have to ask why the guy picked Bodog to sue – probably because he knew that Bodog could not come to the US to defend the claim.
However, since the activities of Bodog are illegal in the United States it is difficult to conceive how the patent holder could have suffered any recoverable damages as a result of any infringement by Bodog.
a little lost
Can the judge enforce US patent protection on a service which can’t be sold or marketed in the US, and does Bodog have any revenue generating activities in the US?
Re: a little lost
That isn’t required these days
Haven’t you heard? The US is now the worlds lawyer as well as policeman. This sits perfectly with the same logic that allowed e360insight to lie to court in order to prove jurisdiction and then proceed to sue Spamhaus
American courts no longer need jurisdiction apparently – they arrogantly expect the rest of the world to travel to the US every time one of their citizens goes on a fishing trip
Patent
No Show = Default
Two Things
That judge = mentally challenged
That patent = the suck of stupidness