Calvin Ayre continues blog assault on lawsuit
By Sarah Polson
With videos of his Dominican Republic vacation to prove how not worried he is about the lawsuit that's holding the Bodog domains hostage, Bodog Entertainment founder and CEO Calvin Ayre has been busy blogging this week about the lawsuit and his thoughts on it.
Despite the seriousness of a lawsuit that has taken away Bodog's main domain and forced it to move, temporarily to a new location at NewBodog.com, Ayre is using his blog to poker fun at the matter.
"Just so you know, this is still an ongoing matter, and I don't have the answers to all of your questions," Ayre says in the blog. "But I will tell you this much: It is extremely important to see the obvious humor in this patent suit. That's why I've used my blog to express my opinions on the matter."
To put it mildly, his opinions on the matter seem to equate to the whole situation being completely ludicrous.
The first indication would be his blog "Patent Trolls vs. Mohawk Nation," detailing his opinion that Dr. Scott Lewis and 1st Technology may want to rethink their patent lawsuit now that they'll have to deal wit the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group as well.
"Although the residents of the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory prefer to call themselves Kanien: keha'ka (the 'People of the Flint'), it was the name 'Mohawk' given to them by the Europeans back in the 1600s, that seems to have stuck. They're tough all right…" Ayre says in the blog.
Then he goes on to detail historical evidence of the Mohawk's toughness.
"It should be very interesting, then, to see how they'll handle the 'patent trolls' over at 1st Technology who are trying to bleed $50 million out of them … all because of some lame patent that 1st Technology claims to have over their Bodog domains," Ayre says.
Patent trolls becomes Ayres main reference to 1st Technology, which claims to have a patent on the process of online gambling. They filed a lawsuit against Bodog Entertainment, and when Bodog didn't show up to defend itself against the lawsuit, judgment was awarded to 1st Technology.
One of the things the company was awarded was the Bodog domain name, which is why Bodog is now located at NewBodog.com until the matter is settled.
To further make light of the situation, Ayre proposed a patent troll dance competition for Bodog employees. They're encouraged to get dressed up in their best patent troll gear and film themselves dancing to "Dueling Banjos," made famous by the movie Deliverance.
The video can be submitted for the chance to win $1,000 plus a Bodog iPod.
"It is just a fun way to get the entire company to show the Patent Trolls at 1st Tech how little respect we have for them," Ayre said. "We've got all the dance videos and will be releasing them (along with the winning video!) over the next few weeks."
Ayre plans to continue posting blogs about the situation and use the lawsuit to his full advantage. He said he's already investigating the backgrounds of the people at 1st Technology as well as their lawyers to be able to post information about them in the future.
As Ayre said himself, there's nothing Bodog likes more than a ready-made media circus, and 1st Technology handed it to them on a platter.
"Bodog is in the entertainment business and this is a very entertaining story so we are going to have some fun with it," Ayre says in his blog. "We have a lot more plans to run marketing programs around this dispute if it's not settled."
In the meantime, within two weeks of moving to a new domain name, the gambling site was back on top of Google searches for Bodog once again.
Calvin Ayre continues blog assault on lawsuit
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Originally Posted by SBR_John
