Unstoppable argues it’s too late and that the registrant (maybe) isn’t impacted by the injunction.
Unstoppable Domains has asked a court not to let the owner of the .wallet Handshake domain intervene in a lawsuit filed against Gateway Registry and its owner.
Unstoppable filed the lawsuit against Gateway Registry, its owner James Stevens, and John Does after Gateway began offering second level .wallet domain name registrations in the Handshake blockchain system. There is also a .wallet extension in Unstoppable’s competing system.
Gateway Registry and James Stevens decided not to defend the lawsuit and closed their service.
Scott Florcsk, the registrant of .wallet in Handshake, filed last week to intervene in the lawsuit. Florcsk argued that, even though he wasn’t named in the lawsuit, the injunction Unstoppable is asking for could prevent him from selling .wallet addresses with a different technology provider.
In response to the request to intervene, Unstoppable states:
Under the terms of the order sought by Plaintiff, Florcsk would not be implicated by that injunction as long as he does not act “in concert with” Defendants.
So it seems that Unstoppable is saying that the injunction would not impact Florcsk and suggests that if he were to work with another registry provider, he would not violate the injunction.
But later, when arguing that Florcsk should have come to the table earlier after the lawsuit was filed, Unstoppable argues:
Neither Florcsk nor his counsel contacted Plaintiff after the motion was filed, despite that motion clearly seeking to enjoin not just against Gateway and Stevens, but also “partners,” “related companies,” and “all persons in active concert or participation with any of them,” from “promoting, registering, selling, or offering for sale any .WALLET domain names.”
I’m not a lawyer, but this seems to suggest that Unstoppable intended for the injunction to impact Florcsk. It seems contradictory.
Even more confusingly, Unstoppable’s filing also states:
So long as Florcsk does not act in concert with Defendants with respect to the enjoined activities, it is unclear how he will not be subject to that injunction.
I assume “not” was added on accident; otherwise, this makes no sense.
Unstoppable also argues that Florcsk waited until the eleventh hour to file his motion to intervene. It makes it out as if he was sitting on the sidelines, which seems like a mischaracterization based on the record.
Florcsk said he emailed Unstoppable’s lawyers after Unstoppable sent a pre-lawsuit cease & desist letter to Gateway. He indeed sent an email to Unstoppable’s lawyer. But Unstoppable’s lawyer argues that, because the email was unsigned, “Plaintiff was unaware that it was sent by Scott Florcsk until reviewing his declaration submitted with his motion.”
Indeed, the email is unsigned and doesn’t include Scott’s name. But it’s clearly sent from someone purporting to be the registrant of .wallet, and Unstoppable’s lawyer apparently didn’t respond to it to open dialogue. So, arguing that Florcsk didn’t engage in the matter until the filing to intervene is questionable.
Based on my observation, here’s what happened:
- Unstoppable’s lawyers sent a cease & desist to Gateway. Gateway showed it to Florsck
- Florsck sent the unsigned email to Unstoppable’s lawyers (and claims he never heard back)
- Unstoppable sued Gateway, its owners, and John Does
- Gateway, its founder, and Florsck talked to an attorney who told them how much it would cost to defend. It was too much money to put up a fight
- Florsck put out a call to the Handshake community to help him fight the lawsuit
- Someone put up either the money or legal resources to fight back, and Florsck filed to intervene shortly thereafter
Most of this happened over 5-6 weeks, which isn’t much time.
Unstoppable says that delaying the injunction would severely prejudice the company:
Florcsk’s untimely motion to intervene and delay entry of default judgment and a permanent injunction will severely prejudice Plaintiff. Defendants Gateway and Stevens have made the deliberate decision not to engage in this litigation and defend on the merits. Florcsk should not now be allowed to step in and delay resolution on Plaintiff’s claims against those Defendants, which would allow the irreparable harm to Plaintiff associated with the domain names Defendants already placed into the market to continue.
Even assuming that Unstoppable is in the right here, and no one else should be able to run a competing .wallet domain, it’s not clear to me how a delay hurts Unstoppable and why an injunction is even necessary at this point. Gateway shut down and is no longer registering .wallet addresses. I don’t think an injunction against Gateway would remove those addresses from the blockchain.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but this is how I see it looking from the outside. I’ll be curious what the judge decides.
The guy that ran away from the lawsuit is pathetic. He should have at least just showed up in court everyday with no lawyers and simply said “They have no trademark, and they will never have a trademark, Nuf said”
I can’t wait to see the VC grift “unstoppable scams” crash and burn, they are deceiving people who are not well versed with the technology and are selling them snake oil
Reverse-hijacking has reached a new level, pun intended.
Begin humor:
This issue would seem to be threatening the stability of the internet.
To solve this problem ICANN should approve a .WALLET application thus insuring a single unambiguous ROOT entry.
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/processes/process2/rfc/rfc1/rfc1-comments/2000/msg00135.html
“It is the commercial sector which has created a litigation nightmare and embroiled the millions of individual domain name holders in fight after fight, as well as a general fear of insecurity in use of the internet.”
– Leah Gallegos, 18 Aug 2000
/End humor
Note, I have always been a supporter of ALT roots. What is going on here is just begging ICANN to get involved ….
Where did you want to put that tag? I think the commenting system strips out anything that is in <>
@unstoppable domain “company” (not a web3 dao) is trying to make decisions that affect the planet.
By way of “their” definition of wallet.
To me wallet is just a word not a finacial statement. I have pics and business cards in my wallet.
Wiki: wallet is a small flat case that can be used to carry personal items.
The Unstoppable bubble will burst.
They are a company of laywers and sales people. With 10 domains. That offer less than any Handshake domain.
I see why they feel threatened.
They passed on the Handshake wallet auction in the beginning and created an inferior product to compete with it..
Now they are trying to hang on to wallet by using it as a financial term and therefore it should be protected.
I knnow many people that dont carry money in a wallet.
UD has a long track record of shady tactics.
Look it up.
Just remember to clear cookies they have a huge marketing budget and will spam the heck out of anyone that looks then up.
Andrew, Alex has just called me a lier. Hopefully your admin tool allows you to see the text of the original post, and what was removed. Please comment. Thank you.
Just after the first line, and just before the last. 🙁
less than , HUMOR, greater than
text
less than, slash, HUMOR, greater than
Next time i will not use the greater than and less then characters. Use to work years ago. Yeah, I’m old! lol
Thank you for commenting Andrew, I do appreciate it!
I just added it and removed comments that were no longer relevant
Meh lame, censoring even tame comments, that’s exactly why we need to get rid of parasites like ICANN and remove more and more layers of censorship until people can have some actual freedom. You can delete comments, but you can’t delete ideas. Powerful ideas will always prevail.
Thank you very much Andrew!
Andrew deleted the comment which upset crybaby Charles with facts that exposed his shtick, safespace restored huh? lmao, what a snowflake u are
If you look you’ll see why. His commented didn’t publish correctly so your response didn’t make sense
>>what a snowflake u are
I’ve been around for about 22 years now and most people know me. Thus, thank you for giving them all a great laugh.
Have a blessed day Alexa.
James Stevens was not, & never has been, the CEO, founder or owner of Gateway Registry Inc of Delaware, as stated in the lawsuit. It is trivial to confirm the name of the founder as this is registered with the Delaware Division of Corporations, file number 6542981