Domain registry says lower court erred in three ways.
XYZ.com LLC and Daniel Negari have filed their opening brief in an appeal against Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) over legal fees.
If you haven’t been tracking this saga, here’s a quick overview:
Verisign, the registry that operates the .com and .net top level domains, sued the .xyz operator alleging false advertising. Basically, Verisign said XYZ inflated its success and disparaged Verisign’s domains.
After extensive discovery, a judge tossed out Verisign’s suit on summary judgment. XYZ then asked the court to require Verisign to pay its $1.6 million legal bill, but that was put on hold as Verisign appealed the lower court’s ruling to an appeals court.
The appeals court ruled against Verisign and then the lower court considered the request for fees. It denied the request other than about $57,000 in discovery fees.
XYZ appealed the court’s decision to not award legal fees. In its opening brief, XYZ makes three arguments:
1. Proving that the case is exceptional should only require a preponderance of the evidence rather than clear and convincing evidence.
2. XYZ doesn’t need to show bad faith on the part of Verisign.
3. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to prove facts.
The opening brief is available here (PDF).
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