Court dismisses .wallet lawsuit

Judge sides with Unstoppable Domains, which promised not to sue (again) over the alt-root domain extension.

Picture of a wallet with three credit cards and the word .wallet superimposed in white text

A judge has dismissed (pdf) a lawsuit over the .wallet alt-root, blockchain-based top level domain name.

The controversy started when Scott Florcsk began selling domains under his .wallet Handshake domain name. Unstoppable Domains has its own .wallet extension.

Following a series of lawsuits, there was one remaining claim: Florcsk asked for declaratory judgment that he wasn’t violating any of Unstoppable Domains’ trademarks by selling .wallet domains.

Still, Unstoppable Domains issued a covenant not to sue Florcsk for IP issues on .wallet and agreed to extend this covenant to registries, registrars, and registrants. The firm argued that this made the claim for declaratory judgment moot.

Florcsk argued that the case ought to continue. Backed with funds from Handshake supporter Namecheap to carry out his lawsuit, Florcsk argued that the covenant not to sue only applied to .wallet, and he wanted assurance that Unstoppable wouldn’t sue over other domains.

But in an opinion published today, the judge agreed with Unstoppable. He noted that the declaratory judgment Florcsk sought only applied to .wallet, and the covenant not to sue covers that.

Also on the wire