Hi Everyone:

I wanted to post to explain some of the details behind our suit against Dutch Boyd, and clear up some of the misinformation that’s been posted by Boyd and others.

Our lawyers at Greenberg Traurig ran a domain name audit for Two Plus Two, and found several infringing registrations, including <twoplustwopoker.com>. GT has filed hundreds of domain name lawsuits and UDRP actions, and they told us that they have rarely seen such a blatantly infringing, bad-faith registration. The domain name contains our entire trademark, along with the term "poker," which describes the services we offer. Even worse, the domain name was linked to a fully interactive poker-themed website containing poker-related links, graphics, and banner ads.

The registration info for the domain was initially shielded, but in July of 2009 GT discovered that the <twoplustwopoker.com> domain name was registered by Dutch Boyd on behalf of business appropriately named "Jacknames.com." Boyd had registered and owned the <twoplustwopoker.com> domain since at least July of 2004, and has been earning substantial revenue from the website for at least the past five years.

We instructed GT to retrieve the domain and to get some more info on Boyd’s registration and infringement. We sent an initial demand letter to Boyd in early August noting his apparent copyright, trademark, and domain name infringement, and the damages he could face if we were forced to file a lawsuit. A copy of this demand letter is attached here. Boyd responded to this letter with a brief email stating that the domain name had expired.

Due to the length of time the registration was owned by Mr. Boyd, and his blatant infringement, we informed Boyd that the expiration of the <twoplustwopoker.com> would not resolve the dispute. At the very least, we needed to know exactly how much revenue the domain name and website had generated and how much traffic the site received. We also demanded that the domain be reclaimed and transferred back to us, as any expired domain places a mandatory 60-90 day hold before it can be registered to a new owner. A copy of our second demand letter is attached here. Boyd again refused our demands, and stated that he was "not afraid of being sued" and that Two Plus Two was "wasting its time."

After additional back and forth emails between our lawyers and Boyd, Boyd continued to refuse our demands for a full accounting of the domain and website, and refused to enter into any sort of reasonable settlement. We sent a final demand letter to Boyd letting him know that we were out of options, and that if he didn’t want to cooperate by providing the domain name data or entering into settlement negotiations, we’d have no choice but to sue him. Boyd responded to our attorneys with a two-word email: “F*** off.” We filed our suit the next day.

We never enter into litigation lightly, and it is never our attempt to “bully” anyone. However, we take protection of our intellectual property very seriously. We’ve spent decades building up our brand from our first days as a small book publisher in Las Vegas. Today, we have sold millions of books around the world and our website continues to grow beyond anything we expected. In fact, we recently hit the one-million unique visitors per month milestone. Due to the time and money we’ve spent building our brand, and the prominent role of the Internet in our success, we cannot afford to take this type of blatant infringement lightly.

We are still open to resolving this matter amicably, but any of our prior settlement offers were made before filing the complaint was necessary, and are now off the table. If Dutch Boyd wants to reach out to our lawyers in a more civil manner to discuss new settlement terms, he is certainly free to do so. But until we get some reasonable cooperation from Boyd, we’ve instructed our lawyers to pursue this litigation and seek all damages, attorneys fees, and costs to which we’re entitled.

Best wishes,
Mason

Here is the first letter mentioned:









Here's the second mentioned letter:

Ok please don't ban me for asking but how can you stop people registering domain names when they aren't already taken? Isn't the internet one big free-for-all in that area?

That would be true...IF lawyers didn't exist.

But they do, sometimes for the good and sometimes to just shuck and jive the hapless sap into handing over his goods.

Thank you for the explanation. That's much different than Dutch was indicating in his thread.

hello, twoplustwo can register and protect many names and extensions as they see fit... to fwd to there domain, and or leave idle, Just so a dutch boyd doesnt grab it.

If Dutch made some money off this, i say good business on his part. And hes done nothing wrong. A domain name was available, so he used that for his site.. Bad business on twoplustwo;s part for not buying that domain up, and working a settlement.

thats what i think

You seem like a very reasonable man, Mason.

Sir, you are excused from the jury.

You think wrong and are an idiot, no offense. This is like saying it's bad business for not selling your new invention to everyone before someone copied it and started selling it himself.

pretty simple stuff, lol dutch.

Registering domain names related to another person's efforts is IMHO a low life move. Best of luck in the courts.

Correct. It's stupid logic. Under this logic I could start hundreds of sites, twoplustworakeback.com, pokertwoplustwo.com, twoplustwopokerforum.com, ect ect. There are also laws to stop people from doing this.

The one thing I do wonder about is dutch claims twoplustwo was not a registered trademark. That fact might give him some leeway.

yeah that Dutch doesn't seem like a real smart cookie. You've been more than reasonable Mason, best of luck.

would be nice if someone took him to court over pokerspot....

jacknames! Subtle.

Ooohhh my company does a lot of work for Greenberg Traurig. Can you depose Dutch Boyd in Chicago? I'd like to personally kick him in the head if possible.