Vegas firm wins ‘Net suits

Grace Leong

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

Las Vegas-based casino gambling giant Mandalay Resort Group has won court orders blocking six Internet site operators from misappropriating its trademarks, and has filed four more lawsuits alleging similar infringements of its brand names.

At issue are Mandalay's trademarks for its Mandalay, Luxor, Excalibur and Gold Strike brands.

Three Coral Gables, Fla., companies, a New Orleans entity, a hotel reservations website owner and a Santa Monica, Calif., entity were ordered to stop appropriating the trademarks in recent rulings.

Mandalay had sued Coral Gables entities Highland International Investment Ltd., Coventry Investments Ltd. and Cambridge Capital Investment Ltd. in U.S. District Court, alleging they linked their domain names to a website that provides links to other websites.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan ordered the defendants to transfer their domain names "i-luxor.com," "emandalay .com," "i-mandalay.com,""iluxor.com" and "e-mandalay.com" to Mandalay.

U.S. District Judge Lloyd George ordered New Orleans-based More Unused Domains, which was accused by Mandalay of linking the domain name "luxorhotellasvegas.com" to a website that provides links to other websites, to return the name.

U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt also ordered Richard Jones, hometown unknown, owner of online hotel reservations websites HotelDiscounts.com and HotelAgent.com; and an Internet casino operator, Interactive One S.R.O.; to return the domain names "goldstrikecasino.com" and "luxorhotel.com" to Mandalay.

Mandalay, which owns the Gold Strike hotel-casinos in Jean, Nev., and Robinsonville, Miss., accused Jones, an affiliate of Interactive One, of improperly linking "goldstrikecasino.com" to Slotland, an online casino allegedly owned by Interactive One. He was also accused of linking the domain name "luxorhotel.com" to his hotel reservations websites.

And Digital Discovery Systems of Santa Monica, Calif., and its owner Dale Bock, which were accused of linking their domain name "excaliberhotel.com" to a hotel reservations website called "Las Vegas Direct," were also ordered by Hunt to transfer the domain name to Mandalay.

Separately, Mandalay filed more lawsuits accusing several online casino operations and their owners of violating the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The act is part of the federal Trademark Act and prohibits the bad faith intentional registration and use of a domain name that contains a famous or distinctive trademark.

Mandalay sued Luxor Online Casino of San Jose, Costa Rica, alleging it linked its domain name "luxor-online-casino.com" to an online casino and sportsbook.

Mandalay sued Brisbane, Australia-based DBS Administration Pty Ltd., alleging it linked its domain name "wwwluxorcasino.com" to a casino directory website that provides links to other casino websites.

Mandalay also sued to stop a South Korean entity and several Internet casino operators from using the Mandalay Bay trademark to promote their online casinos and sportsbooks.

The defendants include San Jose, Calif.-based Michael Lee, owner of I-Clicks.net that operates a Web page at "casino.html"; Digital Betting Unlimited of San Jose, Costa Rica, which operates an online casino at "digitalbetting.com"; and two Ladyville, Belize-based entities, Carribean Sports Book Inc. and Fulton Data Processing, which operate the "Winners Play Casino and Sportsbook" at "winnersplay.com."

The suit said Seoul-based entity Seocho linked its "mandalaybaycasino.com" domain name to a website that links to the defendants' online casinos and sportsbooks.

And Mandalay sued Canyon Country, Calif.-based Montage Inc. and its alleged owners Sean Landry and Neil Davis of West Des Moines, Iowa, alleging they linked their domain name "excaliburcasino.net" to an online casino.

The defendants could not be reached for comment on Mandalay's allegations.