Domain Name Infringement Lands Poker Pro With $60k Bill

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Monday, May 19th, 2014 | Written by Adam Brown

After a four year legal battle between poker pro Russell “Dutch” Boyd and Two Plus Two Publishing LLC, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a March 2012 ruling against Boyd which stated he registered the domain name TwoPlusTwoPoker.com in bad faith in an attempt to make money off of the TwoPlusTwo trademark.

The poker and gambling books publishing company has since been awarded $60K, including $25k in statutory damages and $33,985 in attorney fees, for the trademark infringement, and after the judgement was handed down, the private company’s owner, Mason Malmuth, commented:

“Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld Two Plus Two’s judgment in full, agreeing with the District Court that Boyd’s actions were wrongful and that Boyd acted in bad faith in registering the domain name at issue. The Ninth Circuit also confirmed that Boyd’s registration was willful and deliberate, and therefore that the award of Two Plus Two’s attorney’s fees was proper.

Who is Russell “Dutch” Boyd?

Russell “Dutch” Boyd was once an up and coming name in the US poker scene, first drawing major media attention in 2003 having finished the $10k WSOP Main Event in 12th for an $80,000 payday. By 2006, however, Boyd successfully claimed his first WSOP bracelet by winning the $2,500 Short Handed NL event for $475,712, and in 2010 the WSOP $2,500 Limit Six Handed event for $234,065.

That, however, marked the pinnacle of Russell Boyd’s poker career and by 2012 the then 32 year-old subsequently surprised the poker community by revealing he was now broke, explaining at the time:

“Fallen on hard times since poker’s black Friday and I’ve been job hunting for the last two months. With money running out, I decided to suck it up and get whatever job I can, even if it’s washing dishes for minimum wage.”

Controversial pro

Aside from his endeavors at the poker tables, Boyd has also been viewed as a controversial character by his fellow pros, having raised $50,000 from family and friends in order to start his failed Antigua based online casino specializing in poker, PokerSpot in 2000. When the website ceased operations a year later, PokerSpot failed to refund the outstanding $400,000 in player funds, creating substantial controversy at the time. The situation was exasperated by the fact Boyd admitted to downplaying the difficulties his site was experiencing as it began to fail, later confessing in an online newsgroup that he issued a directive to his Customer Support staff to “..spin it so that the players don’t feel the need to make a mad rush on the cardroom OR the need to tell everyone they know that PokerSpot [is] going to hell in a handbasket. Spin it so that the players continue to just keep on playing.”

Two Plus Two lawsuit

The controversial pro then courted further bad publicity in 2004 by domain name squatting one of the most popular poker and gambling books publishing companies in the industry, Two Plus Two Publishing. The business also operates The Two Plus Two website, a huge online forum where players all over the world get together to discuss mostly poker and gambling-related topics.

By 2009, Two Plus Two Publishing then filed a lawsuit against Boyd claiming that he had taken actions which were “intended to disrupt Two Plus Two’s business by, among other things, diverting web users away from Two Plus Two’s Web sites and forums.”

Nevertheless, Russell “Dutch” Boyd responded to the Two Plus Two Publishing LLC lawsuit by dismissing the allegations as being without merit and “designed to encourage me to pay him [Malmuth] off or face a substantial legal bill defending myself against it.”

Boyd agrees to transfer ownership of domain

However, Boyd did later agree to transfer ownership of TwoPlusTwoPoker.com to the law firm representing the company, namely Greenberg Traurig. all the same, TwoPlusTwoPoker decided to continue its case against Boyd, with Mason Malmuth explaining via his Two Plus Two forum:

“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.”

On March 1, 2012, Judge Kent J. Dawson then granted Two Plus Two Publishing around $60k in Summary Judgment, and decision now upheld by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Retrieving the money a problem?

Two Plus Two may have won the lawsuit, but the real challenge will now come as the business tries retrieving its money from the self-confessed broke poker pro. According to his stats on thehendonmob.com, Boyd has not even cashed in a poker tournament since 6th July 2013, but undetered the controversial pro is still trusting his future to luck, in this case the upcoming World Series Of Poker taking place in Las Vegas starting May 27th. As Boyd ironically explained to Pokernews after losing the lawsuit:

“[It’s] definitely a bad beat. I guess there is one more person rooting for me to have a really successful Series this summer.”