www.newbodog.com or newbodog.com

www.newbodog.com

Can BoDog Survive After Losing Domain 'www.bodog.com'

"The World's Billionaires
Catch Me If You Can"
Matthew Miller 03.27.06 (Forbes Online)

Can it be that the US Government is closing in on the Most Wanted of all 'Online Gaming Moguls'? Well as of yesterday afternoon it seems that the US Government Hounds caught a scent of the brazen 'Catch Me If You Can' Billionare and struck first blood at what might be a Show for things to come by awarding 1st Technology Ent. a judgement in favor of $49,000,000 million ordering www.newbodg.com to pay.

However, don't count Bodog out Yet!

The future may not look so bleak for Bodog despite recent events regarding their domain name. A court ruling forced the successful internet gaming company to hand over their bodog.com domain name to 1st Technology LLC over to patenting infringement claims.

Founder and CEO Calvin Ayre has stated that he will fight the case. The domain was surrendered but in a cleverly conducted counter strike he managed to make sure all provision was migrated to the new domain newbodog.com within 12 hours of the surrender.

This could prove a tricky situation for Ayre as the domain name will lose its search engine rankings of the site is not restored in the near future. With the competitive nature of the industry, this could greatly affect business.

However, as the Bodog name is trademarked to the company, 1st Technology will not be able to sell the name to another party for use. Therefore, even though bodog have had to migrate their site, their branding only holds any value for Ayre.

The settlement that 1st Technology is expecting totals $48 million, but this figure is somewhat unlikely. Dr Scott Lewis has based the sum not only on actual profits, but on future royalties also.

With Ayre determined not to pay the current settlement amount, it is expected that 1st Technology will soon offer a reduced settlement. Failing this, the only route is through the courts which will be a lengthy process. This means that bodog have both time and the branding on their side.