MacPoker trademark battle

A trademark battle has begun between Protos Marketing and Best Odds Corporation over the term “Mac Poker”, the case is proving highly costly and won’t be solved for some time.

Protos Marketing, who own Poker News Daily, MacPoker.com and MacPoker.net are being sued for trademark infringement. So far Protos Marketing have paid out $50,000 in litigation fees for the case which is still pending. Protos Marketing’s Chairman of the Board, Michael Jackness, was named in the case, since which he has reached out to the Poker Affiliate Listings community to oppose the pending trademark application filed by Daniel Moravec of Best Odds Corporation.

Moravec is arguing that MacPoker.com infringes on his domain MacPokerOnline.com and his trademark “Mac Poker”. On the Poker Affiliate Listings forum Jackness explained that, “The [United States Patent and Trademark Office] has approved the application subject to the limitation that he would not have rights on the word ‘poker’ separate and apart from the entire mark. The mark has been published for opposition.” Jackness has until September 25th to file his opposition.

Jackness has been reaching out to the online poker community asking members to sign affidavits claiming that “MacPoker” is a generic term and therefore should not be trademarked. Jackness went on to say, “If you optimize or promote anything related to ‘Mac Poker,’ we believe this should be of great concern to you. Even if you don’t compete for those terms, this may still be a precedent that you, like we, would like to avoid setting.”

When asked why he doesn’t counter-sue Moravec Jackness replied that, “We could counter-sue, and that might ultimately become an option. However, we’ve already spent $50K on this and I would rather just end this nonsense. No one is actually wining here except the lawyers.”
Jackness initially reported that he had dinner with Moravec and that they had agreed to settle the problem by last Friday, “The meal was quite cordial (after I blew off some much needed steam). My feeling from the conversation is that he wants to end this just as much as we do at this point.” Later Jackness said that one possible outcome would be Moravec purchasing MacPoker.com and MacPoker.net for “fair market value” and also repay Protos Marketing’s legal fees.

If Protos Marketing are to fight the application by September 25th it will cost them around $25,000 in legal fees which brings to total to $70,000. Since Moravec has recently said that he thinks it is up to the attorney to decide the case it could end up being a very costly fight.