Morrison & Foerster has worked on private TLD auctions while also representing name.space in its lawsuit against the new TLD program.
Earlier today I wrote about name.space’s opening brief in its appeal to a lawsuit it filed against ICANN last year.
Name.space, which runs an alternate root with many domain names that are identical to ones being applied for in the new top level domain program, sued ICANN last year and asked the court to halt the new top level domain name program.
A judge tossed out the suit, but name.space appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It just filed its opening brief in the appeal this week.
Morrison & Foerster (well known for its Mofo.com domain name) is representing name.space.
Morrison & Foerster also did work for the Applicant Auction run by Innovative Auctions. This is the group helping new TLD applicants settle their contention sets via private auctions.
According to the Applicant Auction website, Morrison & Foerster designed the contract and legal agreements for the auction, and also handled legal and settlement services for the first auction.
That first auction included six domain names, three of which – .club, .red, and .college – also match alt-root TLDs run by name.space.
George Kirikos says
I pointed that out in April:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20130422_first_gtld_contention_auction_to_take_place_in_may/
(see comment #4) The author of the CircleID article, Sheel Mohnot (Project Director, Applicant Auction) didn’t take the opportunity to explain that odd situation back then.
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks George, I missed that.
Andrew Allemann says
I wonder if that’s why Deloitte is now handling settlement.