MGM Initiates Lawsuit against Online Poker Sites

Trademark infringement case against four individuals and two companies A report arrived this week that Vegas land gambling group MGM has initiated a lawsuit in the US District Court in Las Vegas against four individuals and two companies, claiming that trademark infringement has taken place. The persons that face the charges are Shahram Kolahzadeh, Evan Krentzman, Roberto Ciamillo, and Adam Majewski, whereas the two companies named are PokerSons and RevNet. According to the MGM Resorts International legal representatives, the defendants registered poker-related websites between 2002 and 2005 using MGM's trademarks, including: bellagioonlinepoker; circuscircuspoker; excaliburpoker; luxorpoker; mandalaybayonlinepoker; mgmpoker and ariapoker. In addition, they stated that “The defendants have or have had a bad faith intent to profit from their registration of the domain names,” the suit claims, asking the court for a temporary restraining order against the defendants to block them from using the domain names. “The defendants have done nothing more than tack on the descriptive terms 'poker' or 'online poker' to each of the MGM marks to form the domain names. Accordingly, there is no question that the domain names are confusingly similar to the MGM marks.”