And .wallet Handshake owner file dueling lawsuits — Unstoppable Domains

Fight escalates between Unstoppable Domains and Handshake.

Blockchain domain name firm Unstoppable Domains and the owner of .wallet in the rival Handshake system have sued each other.

The lawsuits come on the heels of Unstoppable Domains’ lawsuit against Gateway Registry and its owner. Unstoppable sued those parties following Gateway started offering .wallet registrations in Handshake.

Gateway was operating as a registry/registrar for Wallet Inc. and the Handshake domain’s owner, Scott Florcsk. Unstoppable didn’t name Florsck and Wallet Inc. in that suit, but Florsck later filed to intervene.

Florsck’s lawsuit (pdf) asks for Declaratory Judgment that he is not infringing Unstoppable’s rights, unfair competition, and violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

His lawsuit reiterates many of the arguments in his motion to intervene. In addition to pointing out Unstoppable’s failed attempts to get trademarks for top level domains, a key argument is that people won’t confuse matching domains in different blockchains since you can only access one blockchain at a time.

Unstoppable’s lawsuit (pdf) names both Florsck and Wallet Inc. It asks for findings of common law trademark infringement, unfair competition, and intentional interference with contractual relations and with prospective business relationships.

The firm points to its unregistered trademark rights in the U.S. but also states it has registered rights in the European Union and Japan. (This is news to me. The firm has repeatedly failed to get trademarks in the U.S. Last year, it expanded its attempts to get trademarks to Canada.)

At NamesCon earlier this month, Unstoppable Domains CEO Brad Kam stated he believes there cannot be matching blockchain domains in different systems for blockchain domains to work. As for who ought to get exclusive rights to run a TLD, Kam stated:

It’s the same as it would be for any IP. So essentially what happens is you have first commercial use, you have market penetration…you have all the same reasons why you can’t launch McDonald’s restaurant is the same reason.

Both suits were filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

Following the suits were filed, Unstoppable Domains asked the court to not let Florsck intervene in the first case. Florsck’s attorneys responded to that request by saying they still think it’s notable to intervene.