Harrah's wants WSOP.com for poker series

Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. has filed a lawsuit to try to gain possession of the domain name WSOP.com which is currently owned by Federico Schiavio.

The company claims that it owns the trademark on the name "World Series of Poker" and has applied for a patent on the name "WSOP" so the site should be passed to them.


Schiavio, who was the information technology director for Binion's Horseshoe Casino, purchased the domain name a year before Harrah's purchased Binion's in 2004. His site, in which WSOP is an acronym for the World's Standard of Online Poker, has poker information, directs people to an online poker site, and looks to be developing its own poker site.

Harrah's purchased Binion's to develop and profit off of the casino's increasingly popular World Series of Poker. They claim that Schiavio is profiting off of their brand, and, at the same time, associating the site with online gambling which is illegal in the United States.

Harrah's lays out its claim in a 13-page lawsuit and is asking that Schiavio be prohibited from using the WSOP trademark and be forced to transfer the domain name to them as well as asking that they be awarded damages.

The company has also asked that the court order the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reject Schiavio's application to trademark the acronym and approve their own application instead.

Earlier this year, Harrah's had filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum to settle the dispute. The forum decided that it would inappropriate for it to make a decision while the trademark office was considering Schiavio's trademark application.

News Added: 22 September, 2006

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