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?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: domain names, online poker, patents
Companies: bodog
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
defenceless
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
a little lost
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: a little lost
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
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Two Things
That patent = the suck of stupidness
[ link to this | view in chronology ]