Poker Pro/Law Grad Fighting Familiar BigLaw Foe

Pic: Free Poker Photos

Last month we wrote about one of Greenberg Traurig’s recent engagements, representing poker publisher Two Plus Two Publishing in some trademark suits against pro poker player Dutch Boyd.

Boyd, you’ll recall, not only has lifetime tournament winnings in excess of $1.5 million, but he’s also the self-proclaimed second-youngest law-school graduate ever.

Through the magic of the interwebs, Boyd saw our post and commented that he had answered and counterclaimed “in pro se ftw.”

This isn’t his first time going up against Greenberg Traurig, either.

Boyd was kind enough to provide a copy of his answer and counterclaim, after the jump.

We’re not going to reinvent the wheel. Here’s how we originally described the suit:

Mark Tratos (UNLV BA ‘74, Lewis & Clark JD ‘79), managing shareholder of the office, and associates Tyler Andrews and Shauna Welsh filed of Greenberg Traurig Las Vegas filed a pair of complaints on behalf of client Two Plus Two Publishing. The complaints were filed separately against Anthony Scocozza and Jacknames.com and Russell Aaron “Dutch” Boyd.

2+2 publishes books, magazines, and newsletters about poker (two absolute essentials are theHarrington on Hold ‘Em series and David Sklansky’s The Theory of Poker). The company also hosts, in our humble opinion, far and away the best public forum for poker strategy.

The site and various 2+2 trademarks are owned by Mason Malmuth, a poker player and statistician who is also a prodigious author on the subject.

According to the lawsuits, Scocozza and Boyd registered internet domains using the marks. The Las Vegas Sun got the defendants to respond. Scocozza simply said he had nothing to do with the website at issue.

As he said before, Boyd won’t be bullied. In his response (embedded below), he denies pretty much all of the allegations and serves up failure to state a claim, laches, unclean hands, weak trademark, and a host of other technical defenses.

The good stuff, of course, is in the counterclaims (including some interesting but seemingly irrelevant autobiographical information), and he’s got those in spades. Among other things, he counterclaims for

• intentional infliction of emotional distress (for picking on his bipolar disorder by publishing “an altered photo of a fat, semi-naked mental patient sitting in a padded room with [Boyd]‘s face superimposed over that of the subject”), and
• abuse of process (alleging that 2+2 and Greenberg Traurig specifically knew or should have known that the allegedly infringing domain had expired before they sued him, and that GT had even claimed and registered the domain).

Most interestingly for this blog, though is the following:

43. Furthermore, upon information and belief, Two Plus Two’s legal counsel, the law firm of Greenberg Traurig, has a history of abusing the legal process to “reverse hijack” domain names from their owners, including for example a history of attempting said “reverse hijacking” against Dutch Boyd in an unrelated UDRP. See WIPO Case No. D2008-1518 where the panelist denies the UDRP complaint brought by Greenberg Traurig and finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes and attempt at reverse domain name hijacking.

He’s not kidding around. He did in fact get this finding in the previous dispute over the <pokerhost.net> domain brought by complainant Poker Host Inc of Panama represented by Greenberg Traurig:

The Panel finds that the Complainant brought the Complaint either without any attempt to verify whether it had a case for claiming that the Respondent had registered the Domain Name in bad faith or knowing that it did not have any viable case on this point. In these circumstances, the Panel concludes that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an attempt at reverse domain name hijacking.

We’ll keep you posted on further developments.

Tratos never responded to our original request for comment.

Boyd Answer – 2+2 Two Plus Two vs. Boyd

Tagged as: greenberg traurig, poker