Sports betting agencies fight for naming rights

Sportsbetting has questioned why Sportsbet has launched legal action against it now after two decades.

Sportsbetting also questioned why Sportsbet had launched legal action against it now after two decades. Pat Scala/Racing Photos via Getty Images

Wagering minnow Sportsbetting.com.au has countered betting giant Sportsbet’s claim it had infringed its trademark, saying it had registered its domain six years earlier.

In documents filed with the Federal Court on Thursday, Sportsbetting argued that if its brand has been impinged, Sportsbet’s trademark should be struck out in Australia.

The counter claim comes after Sportsbet, owned by Irish group Flutter Entertainment, sued Melbourne-based Sportsbetting for trademark infringement — despite the two outfits operating alongside one another for almost two decades.

Sportsbet is the market leader in the $4bn Australian online betting industry with a share of about 25 per cent, which is set to grow to almost 40 per cent as it subsumes rival BetEasy in a $US12bn merger between Flutter Entertainment and BetEasy’s owner The Stars Group.

Sportsbetting says it has been operating a sports-betting business under the Sportsbetting.com.au and the Sportsbetting.aust.com trademarks continuously since 1998 — long before Sportsbet filed an application for its trademark in August 2004.

“In 1998, Sportsbetting’s predecessor, Hamish Davidson, founded a sports-betting business named Davidson Sports Betting and immediately started using the domain name www.ozemail.com.au/-sportbet and the email address [e-mail] to promote his sports-betting services,” Sportsbetting says in court documents.

“On 29 September 1998, Mr Davidson registered the domain name www.sportsbetting.aust.com and commenced using that domain name to promote his sports-betting services.

“If the court has found that the Sportsbetting.com.au mark is substantially identical to the Sportsbet trademarks, then the court should also find that the Sportsbet trademarks are substantially identical to the Sportsbetting trademarks such that Sportsbet is not the owner of the Sportsbet trademarks.”

Tabcorp watching from the sideline

Watching on the sidelines will be Australian-listed betting giant Tabcorp, which itself owns a range of domains that contain the words sports and betting, which Sportsbet claims it has a trademark to in Australia.

Sportsbetting highlighted the use of Tabcorp’s use of the TAB Sportsbet mark until at least 2014, as well as the use of the Sportingbet trademark by Sportingbet Australia up until at least 2016 and the continued use of the Sportsbetting.com.au mark by Sportsbetting.

Sportsbetting also questioned why Sportsbet had launched legal action against it now after two decades.

“Throughout the approximately 20 years that (Sportsbetting) and its predecessors have been using the Sportsbetting.com.au mark in Australia, Sportsbet and its predecessors did not at any time raise with it any objection to such use or suggest to it that such use constituted an infringement of any trade mark or other rights of Sportsbet until the letter from Sportsbet’s lawyers to it dated 24 April 2020.”