Bodog Round 2 Split Decision – the Fight Continues

Online gaming and entertainment empire Bodog headed back into court last week to appeal against the default judgement imposed on them by a Nevada court last month.

A company called 1st Technology caught Bodog by surprise last month by claiming the downloadable casino software used by Bodog Casino was in breach of a patent held by 1st Tech. Bodog claims they were not served with notice of the proceedings and didn't appear at the hearing, resulting in the judge handing down a default judgement ordering the US-based domain name registrar to remove all Bodog-related websites from their servers and fining Bodog $49 million.

The Bodog empire was back online within a day on a new set of domain names (NewBodog.com). They then announced they had partnered with the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group (based in Canada) and Calvin Ayre (Bodog's CEO) announced they would be letting the "Mohawks" handle the fight and launched a vitriolic attack on 1st Tech and their CEO on his popular blog, calling 1st Tech "nothing more than Patent Trolls".

Despite all this, Bodog headed back into court on Thursday seeking to overturn the default judgement filed against them. To counteract, 1st Tech's lawyers filed for a permanent injunction against Bodog that would prevent from operating in the US and also stop them from redirecting online traffic to their new domain names (BodogLife.com). Yet neither side got their desired result.

Calvin Ayre has emphatically stated Bodog will continue the appeal against the default judgement, but added: "The real good news is that this company has zero assets in it, being formally wound up under Costa Rican law over a year ago, so our friends in Costa Rica are not going to have to worry about losing anything in this no matter how this unfolds."

The judge ruled on Thursday that 1st Tech's motion for a permanent injunction was faulty and that injunctive relief was inappropriate.

It seems Calvin Ayre has been able to restructure his operations effectively so that damage to his business will mainly come from lost SEO (search engine optimization) raking points on major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Yet Ayre said he will continue to pursue a broader legal challenge of the issue:

"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 US. This is the first time in history that a non-US company, with zero operations or assets in the US, has had its domain names seized with no prior notice simply because it was using a US-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."

Calvin Ayre does not seem like the kind of man to back away from a fight and so, it seems at least for now, the battle will rage on. We'll keep you updated with the thrills and spills.

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