Game maker sues Henderson man, says website linked to adult content

Grace Leong

Thursday, March 23, 2000 | 11:31 a.m.

Tokyo-based video game giant Konami Co. Ltd. and its Las Vegas subsidiary, Konami Gaming Inc., went to court to stop a Henderson man from misappropriating their federally registered KONAMI trademark and domain name to promote his dating services website.

Konami, which is best known for producing a variety of video game products from stand-up games for video arcades to cartridges for home entertainment systems, sued Douglas B. Beavers doing business as DB Enterprises, alleging he registered and linked the domain name KONAMIGAMING to his "Vegashotspots.com" website to increase traffic flow to that site.

The suit said Beavers' website, which includes a "singles" database and links to a casino website, "purportedly promotes Las Vegas tourism but also included certain scandalous material for an adult audience." This includes a list of bars to frequent while visiting Las Vegas and a link to a book on "How to pick up beautiful women in night clubs."

Konami, which plans to open a 60,000 square-foot slot machine design and manufacturing company in Las Vegas later this year, said consumers looking to visit Konami's two websites "www.konami.com" and "www.konamiusa.com" were allegedly being diverted to Beavers' websites.

Konami, which said it owned and operated the two websites even before Beavers' KONAMIGAMING domain name was registered, accused him of violating the AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protection Act when he allegedly offered, through a third party, to sell the domain name back to the company for $10,000.

The suit said the defendant allegedly owned other domain names including ACCoin.com, which is similar to the name of a gaming machine manufacturer ACCoin & Slot Co.

Konami, which said it offered to reimburse Beavers for any documented costs associated with registering the KONAMIGAMING domain name, alleged Beavers said he didn't believe he was doing anything wrong since KONAMIGAMING wasn't a federally registered trademark.

Konami, which seeks statutory damages of not less than $1,000 and not more than $100,000 per domain name, said it feared legal proceedings may become more complicated and the list of defendants may grow if Beavers isn't enjoined from selling the domain name to other parties.

Beavers could not be reached for comment.