Unstoppable argues that it is too late and that registrant is (perhaps) unaffected by the injunction.
Unstoppable Domains has asked a court to keep the owner of the .wallet Handshake domain from intervening in a lawsuit against Gateway Registry and its owner.
Unstoppable filed a 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 competitor system.
Gateway Registry and James Stevens decided not to defend the lawsuit and closed their service.
Scott Florcsk, the holder of the .wallet in Handshake, asked last week to intervene in the lawsuit. Florcsk argued that, although he was not named in the lawsuit, the injunction sought by Unstoppable could prevent him from selling .wallet addresses with another technology provider.
In response to the request for intervention, Unstoppable states:
Under the order sought by the plaintiff, Florcsk would not be bound by this injunction until it acted “in concert with” the defendants.
So it looks like Unstoppable is saying the injunction wouldn’t impact Florcsk and suggesting that if it worked with another registry provider, it wouldn’t violate the injunction.
But later, arguing that Florcsk should have come to the table sooner after the lawsuit was filed, Unstoppable argues:
Neither Florcsk nor his attorney contacted the plaintiff after the petition was filed, although the petition clearly seeks to prohibit not only Gateway and Stevens, but also “partners”, “related companies” and “all active persons”. in concert or participation with any of them”, to “promote, register, sell or offer for sale .WALLET domain names”.
I’m not a lawyer, but this seems to suggest that Unstoppable wanted the injunction to impact Florcsk. It seems contradictory.
Even more confusingly, the Unstoppable file also states:
Until Florcsk acts in concert with the defendants regarding the prohibited activities, it is unclear how he will not be subject to this injunction.
I guess “no” was added accidentally; otherwise it makes no sense.
Unstoppable also argues that Florcsk waited until the eleventh hour to file its motion to intervene. This makes it look like he was sitting on the sidelines, which appears to be a misinterpretation based on the record.
Florcsk said it emailed Unstoppable’s attorneys after Unstoppable sent a pre-trial cease and desist letter to Gateway. He indeed sent an email to Unstoppable’s lawyer. But Unstoppable’s attorney argues that because the email was unsigned, “the claimant was unaware it was sent by Scott Florcsk until he reviewed his statement submitted with his motion. “.
Indeed, the email is unsigned and does not include Scott’s name. But it’s clearly sent by someone claiming to be the owner of the .wallet, and Unstoppable’s lawyer apparently didn’t respond to it to open a dialogue. Therefore, to say that Florcsk did not become involved in the case before the filing of the request to intervene is questionable.
From my observation, this is what happened:
- Unstoppable’s lawyers sent a cease and desist to Gateway. Gateway showed it to Florsck
- Florsck sent the unsigned email to Unstoppable’s lawyers (and claims he never got a response)
- Unstoppable sued Gateway, its owners and John Does
- Gateway, its founder and Florsck spoke to a lawyer who told them how much it would cost to defend themselves. It was too much money to fight
- Florsck has appealed to the Handshake community to help fight the lawsuit
- Someone provided the money or the legal resources to retaliate, and Florsck filed for intervention soon after.
Most of these events took place over 5-6 weeks, which is not a lot of time.
Unstoppable claims that delaying the injunction would seriously harm the company:
Florcsk’s untimely motion to intervene and delay the entry of a default judgment and a permanent injunction will seriously prejudice the plaintiff. Defendants Gateway and Stevens made a conscious decision not to engage in this litigation and to defend themselves on the merits. Florcsk should not now be allowed to step in and delay the resolution of Plaintiff’s claims against these Defendants, which would allow for irreparable harm to Plaintiff associated with domain names already put on the market by Defendants.
Even assuming Unstoppable is in the right here, and no one else should be able to run a competing .wallet domain, I don’t understand how a delay hurts Unstoppable and why an injunction is even needed at this point . The gateway has stopped and no longer registers .wallet addresses. I don’t think an injunction against Gateway would remove these addresses from the blockchain.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but that’s how I see it from the outside. I’ll be curious to know what the judge decides.
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