Online gamblers have been in a bit of a pickle this week with trouble at Bodog.com due to a dispute over the ownership of the domain name bodog.com, causing the website to be temporarily out of action. It’s back up and running now at a new address www.newbodog.com
The problem has stemmed from “a $48.6-million default judgment obtained by a Las Vegas company against Bodog in a patent infringement case” according to the Vancouver Sun. The Vancouver Sun goes on to say “according to Nevada court documents, 1st Technology LLC of Las Vegas obtained a $48.6-million default judgement on June 14 against Bodog Entertainment Group S.A., Bodog.net and Bodog.com.”
Further, it’s not clear why Bodog officials didn’t respond to the allegations, but it could be related to the US Department of Justice’s war on internet gambling. There have been a number of high profile arrests of online gambling executives, especially those from the UK. So it’s wise for these executives to steer clear of the US.
Known Bodog registered domains have been suspended, and as an immediate ‘bandaid’ solution the company registered New Bodog.com – the company has trademarked the Bodog brand and founder and CEO Calvin Ayre has said it is going to fight the action with determination. The implications for brand, business, search engine positioning and other elements are clearly significant. According to Internet searches, 1st Technology LLC is “….a leading technology licensing company with a patent portfolio of advanced Internet and multimedia innovations. 1st Technology is headed by Internet pioneer Dr. Scott Lewis who led the development of the world’s first single integrated circuit chip with on-board video and audio compression, advanced adaptive digital signal processing technology at Oxford University, and introduced multiple broadband Internet and multimedia technologies. 1st Technology has a long list of industry leaders as licensees. The “alleged” Bodog violation relates to the method for the production and transmission of enhanced multimedia information. An optimization method is disclosed that enhances the interactivity of multimedia information. The optimization method includes separating a multimedia information into primary and secondary layers and enhancing that information in the primary layers such that the perceived psychographic information quality is improved. This method has the advantage of providing compression and/or transmission algorithms to maximize enhancement of the multimedia information.” “Nearly all aspects of the Bodog website have been updated to reflect the environment our clients are accustomed to,” says Ayre. “We are working to resolve any of the minor remaining glitches on the alternate site, but other than that it is business as usual.”
The timing of the litigation is significant and presumably intended – the first two to three weeks of North American football are the busiest of the year for online sportsbetting in that market sector.
Everyone within the entire internet gambling industry is starting to take notice today of how the Bodog.com domain name hijacking applies to their businesses. No matter if you are an operator or an affiliate, everyone needs to realize that what happened to Calvin Ayre and Bodog Entertainment can happen to any other internet gambling operator.
Several operators have expressed their concern over the incident. While most of his competitors are usually overjoyed in his misery, all that we have spoken to have been nothing but supportive of the situation Ayre finds himself in after his prized domain name was redirected due to a default judgment against his company for $48 million dollars.
“We are watching what happens with the Bodog domain name case very closely,” stated a Bodog competitor. “What happened to Calvin can happen to anyone in the internet gambling industry and our legal team is already advising us on how we should proceed to prevent this from happening to our domain names.”
Mel Molnick has a registered patent that basically says he invented internet gambling. I know the thought of this reminds everyone reading this article of Al Gore bragging about how he invented the internet. On the surface it does appear as if Molnick created internet gambling, I am not joking either, at least as far as the US patent office is concerned! Everyone in the internet gambling industry realizes however that people were doing various forms of gambling via the internet before Molnick’s patent was awarded.
Method patents are widely litigated and Molnick’s internet gambling method patent can be challenged in court but the real question is:
What can a internet gambling operator do in order to avoid the opportunistic Molnick from holding them hostage?
1.) Change the ownership of their URLS around on a continual basis.
By changing the domain name ownership often, it will be virtually impossible to secure a court order against the specific owner of the URL because it will constantly be influx.
2.) Change the registrar of the domain name to one that is based outside of the jurisdiction of US courts.
While this does not 100% prevent a domain name hijacking from taking place, it certainly will make it more difficult, time consuming and costly for the party trying to acquire the domain name.
“Bodog was very reactive to my needs as an affiliate right from the beginning of the issue,” stated super affiliate Bones McCoy of 1800-Sports.com. “I already re-routed the tracking codes to the NewBodog.com URL and it is business as usually as far as I am concerned.”
Legal detail can be found at: http://www.metrokc.gov/kcscc/daily%2…7judgments.txt in case number 07-9-21969-8 dated 8/1/2007, and at http://dw.courts.wa.gov/index.cfm?fa…asesearchTerms
There is more information on the case in the Vancouver Sun here and at the New Bodog website here.
Source: Press Release – August 29th, 2007
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