MGM granted motion for injunction in domain case
Domain hosts ordered by judge to disable offending sites, while domain owners forbidden from using MGM or Aria trademarks.
US casino operator MGM International has been granted a motion for injunction in its case against the owners of several internet domain names.
The trademark infringement case, first brought in December, covers sites including bellagiopoker.com and ariapoker.com.
Adam Majewski, owner of a third affected domain – ExcaliburPoker.com – had filed a motion for dismissal in the same month, arguing that “Excalibur is not a distinctive mark.”
However the ruling from US District Judge Philip M Pro states that Majewski – along with fellow defendants Evan Krentzman, Roberto Ciamillo, RevNet and PokerSons – are “[P]reliminarily restrained and enjoined from registering or trafficking in any domain name containing the MGM Marks or any confusingly similar variations thereof.”
Meanwhile fellow defendant Shahram Kolahzadeh, owner of the ariapoker.com domain, has been given similar restrictions with regard to the Aria trademark.
Consequently domain hosts Wild West Domains (for ariapoker.com), Melbourne IT Ltd (for circuscircuspoker.com) and GoDaddy (for the remaining sites) have been required to remove or disable the relevant DNS information for the sites.
Judge Pro states that MGM “is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims for cybersquatting and trademark infringement,” adding that the failure to enforce the surrender of the offending domains would cause the operator “irreparable injury to its valuable trademarks and associated goodwill.”