Minds+Machines Sues Wolfgang Puck over .Food TLD
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Consulting firm sues Wolfgang Puck and his wife over failed .food deal.
As if the new top level domain craze couldn’t get any weirder, new TLD consulting firm Minds+Machines is suing Wolfgang Puck and his wife. The lawsuit was filed by Minds+Machines, Top Level Domain Holdings, LTD., a British Virgin Islands registered company, and Federick R. Krueger.
The lawsuit claims that Wolfgang Puck and his wife tried to interject themselves into all new TLDs Minds+Machines is working on and that Puck ceased to jointly promote .food as agreed.
The contents of the lawsuit summarize what Minds+Machines alleges:
A. Minds+Machines Offers Top-Level Domain Registration and Operation Services.
B. Wolfgang Puck and Minds+Machines Agreed to Jointly Promote and Apply for .FOOD
C. Wolfgang Puck’s Wife, Gelila Puck, Interjected Herself in the Relationship Between Minds+Machines and Wolfgang Puck
D. Gelila Puck Unsuccessfully Sought to Become Involved in the Top-Level Domain Business
E. Gelila Puck Interfered with Minds+Machines’ Existing Business Relationships.
F. The Parties Negotiated, But Did Not Enter Into, a Broader Agreement
G. Gelila Puck Became Hostile Towards Plaintiffs
H. The Pucks Falsely Claim the Short-Form Agreement Is in Effect and have
Threatened to Sue Minds+Machines, TLDH, and Krueger.
The lawsuit claims Minds+Machines has already spent $100,000 promoting the TLD. The lawsuit alleges Gelila Puck, who has no technical background, “became personally and emotionally invested in the top-level domain business and came to dominate the parties’ relationship.” She “began to tell her acquaintances that she was creating the “new Internet.” She also frequently told friends, acquaintances, and business people that she was the “next Bill Gates.”
The Pucks sent a demand letter to Top Level Domain Holdings, saying that it owned 50% of .FOOD, 50% of any TLD business that was the result of an introduction made by the Pucks, and the right to co-invest in any new TLD that TLDH works on. These demands are based on a a draft agreement between the Pucks and TLDH that TLDH argues was never signed.
It gets better. The lawsuit file is here.
(Hat tip George Kirikos)
Related posts:
- Minds and Machines Settles Food Fight with Wolfgang Puck
- Top 5 Domain News Stories of September 2009
- Thought Convergence Sues Westerdal
Tags: minds+machines, new gtlds, wolfgang puck
That is one Puck’ed up situation.
The Pucks had some great ideas for multi-TLD network, called the cluster-Puck.
puck off berryhill
Thanks for posting the PDF. This is a soap opera, or a “.food fight” so to speak.
I’m only 1/3rd the way through the statement of claim, and need some popcorn.
RT @jintlaw: Registries are not for the faint of heart http://bit.ly/sIAYt <<< whoa
If this is any indication of things to come, all predictions of new gtld disaster will have been underestimated.
George, it does make some amazing claims.
I’d like to hire Berryhill to be the DNW pun writer, but he’s too expensive. He charges twice as much for punning as he does legal services.
TLDH is a public company, so its shares might react tomorrow. However, it’s so thinly traded that anything can happen.
Lets see, we don’t live on the moon yet. Maybe some lunar real estate disputes in the next month or so, perhaps?
How ’bout those Dodgers?
http://www.it-scc.org/documents/IT_Sector_Risk_Assessment_Report_Final.pdf
Minds+Machines Sues Wolfgang Puck over .Food TLD – http://tinyurl.com/nod93j
Reading these comments is pun-ishment enough. Puckers.
John Berryhill – that is just hilarious!
Antony Van Couvering of Mind + Machines responded to the case as follows:
“On Thursday last week, Minds + Machines received a letter from Daniel Petrocelli of O’Melveny and Myers, the trial lawyer who represented Jeffrey Skilling of Enron. On behalf of Gelila and Wolfgang Puck, Mr. Petrocelli claimed that the Pucks have the right to co-invest in most of our business endeavors, and that their introductions to some celebrity acquaintances entitle them to 50% of some of Minds + Machines’ business endeavors.
“Yesterday, in Federal Court, we filed suit against Gelila and Wolfgang Puck, asking the court to declare that their claims are frivolous, and that they do not have a right to participate in our non-.FOOD projects.”
His full statement appears here:
http://www.mindsandmachines.com/2009/09/minds-machines-files-suit/
“I’d like to hire Berryhill to be the DNW pun writer”
Andrew,
I was going to say to Mr.Berryhill that PunMeister.com was available thinking it
must be.
I checked to be sure.
It’s registered.
PunMeister.food is unregistered
.pun? Quick, call M+M!
“PunMeister.food is unregistered”
lol
Maybe Wolfgang will reg it.
The more interesting piece is what if they lose? How will this affect M&M’s .eco push?
If this is a sign of all the fights that are going to take place over the new TLDs in the near future, then one can only assume that these new TLDs are even more valuable than we all originally thought.
here are a couple of domains that I got just incase
TLDpromotions.com
TLDmarketing.com
Already?
I just finished reading the pdf and it’s quite a page turner. I came away with two impressions:
1) Gelila Puck makes Tallulah Bankhead look like Sandra Bullock.
2) M&M seems to have been quite taken in by Gelila Puck and the Puck celebrity name status in general. Throughout the filing M&M maintains they had established powerful connections for some planned TLDs, yet immediately abandoned them when Gelila claimed she had a better connection(.wine, .fashion). Yet, they denigrate her for simply being someone Wolfgang met while she was answering his phones at Spago. C’mon guys you can’t have it both ways. If she had no credentials (besides being Wolfgang’s wife) why would you so easily follow her lead? I can assure you her attorney is thinking the same thing.
lol thisfoodispucked.com is not regged.. lol
wow.. really shows how relationships in biz is so important.. regardless of the paper contracts.. and also, that even you may think you are only entering into a relationship with the ‘principal’ in this case wolfgang.. you are also vicariously taking on his wife / family by extension.. guess M+M never saw this one coming.. hope they come out on top.. on the face of it, this ‘gelila’ seems to be living up to the celebrity “I’m a god” status… or is she trying to be one…
http://gawker.com/5351233/anna-wintour-just-an-employee-to-wolfgang-pucks-wife
[...] Read The Full Article At DomainNameWire.com [...]
The NY Times “Diner’s Journal” blog had an update on the story today:
http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/pucks-lawyer-calls-lawsuit-baseless/
Daniel Petrocelli said “allegations against the Pucks are false, irresponsible, and legally baseless.”
[...] and his current wife (Gelila Puck, former Spago hostess) are being sued by the consulting firm behind the project: Minds + [...]
[...] + Machines, along with its parent company Top Level Domain Holdings and Frederick Krueger, sued the Pucks last month, alleging that Gelila Puck inserted herself into all of the plaintiff’s business dealings and [...]