Bodog.com loses control over their domain - Update

The story of how Bodog has lost control over their domain name has been unfolding throughout the day, and now enough details seem to have surfaced to construct a clear picture of what’s happened.

Dr. Scott Lewis, owner of 1st Technology LLC, filed a lawsuit in the State of Washington against Bodog for infringement of this patent. Bodog did not respond to the lawsuit, and on August 1st, 2007, a default judgment was awarded to Lewis in the amount of roughly $50 million by the court.

In addition, the absence of Bodog at the hearing meant that whatever Lewis moved for as compensation was granted by the court, which apparently included an order issued by the court to enom.com, the registrar of the Bodog domain name, to remove all name servers for the Bodog.com and CalvinAyre.com domains - rendering the sites effectively blank.

There is no public record of the ruling by the court - apparently the record is confidential either because it was a patent issue, thus it was all filed under seal or there was not an opinion because there is a pending jurisdictional challenge. A third explanation for lack of a published opinion is that after the judgment, the parties reached an agreement regarding how to deal with the judgment, and a vast majority of patent settlements are also under seal.