In a legal battle that has been going on for over four years, Two Plus Two Publishing LLC has won yet another, and perhaps the final, round against poker player Russell “Dutch” Boyd. On Friday, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a March 2012 judgment against Boyd, once again siding with Two Plus Two in its trademark infringement lawsuit.
The dispute began back in late 2009, when Two Plus Two accused Boyd of cyber-squatting, as he had purchased the domain name TwoPlusTwoPoker.com in 2004, one of several poker-related domain names he acquired over the years as a means of speculation. Two Plus Two didn’t like this, considering it trademark infringement. Under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), domain name registrant cannot register a URL that is either identical or similar to a URL already in existence and that the registrant cannot use it in bad faith (essentially, the registrant can’t use intend to profit off of the name of the original URL with the new one).
Two Plus Two filed a lawsuit against Boyd, who agreed to transfer the ownership of the domain name to Greenberg Traurig, the law firm representing Two Plus Two. Two Plus Two refused to drop the lawsuit, though. Company owner Mason Malmuth posted on the Two Plus Two forum, “Due to the length of time the registration was owned by Mr. Boyd, and his blatant infringement, we informed Boyd that the expiration of the TwoPlusTwoPoker.com would not resolve the dispute. At the very least, we needed to know exactly how much revenue the domain name and website had generated and how much traffic the site received.”
He added that they tried to settle out of court with Boyd, but he would have none of it.
In March 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Kent Dawson ruled that Boyd did, in fact, act in bad faith when he registered the TwoPlusTwoPoker.com domain and awarded Two Plus Two $25,000 in statutory damages as well as $33,985 in attorney fees.
The case was appealed and last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Dawson’s decision.
Said Malmuth on the Two Plus Two forum:
Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld Two Plus Two’s judgment in full, agreeing with the District Court that Boyd’s actions were wrongful and that Boyd acted in bad faith in registering the domain name at issue. The Ninth Circuit also confirmed that Boyd’s registration was willful and deliberate, and therefore that the award of Two Plus Two’s attorney’s fees was proper.
We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s decision and thankful that after several years (and barring any further appeals by Boyd) it looks like this lawsuit is finally over.
Of course, there is still the matter of whether or not Dutch Boyd will actually pay the money. Cash games aside, he has not had a live tournament cash since June 2013.