The digital payment company Block Inc. has taken legal action against Roger Ver’s Bitcoin.com for alleged trademark infringement in connection with its newly launched Verse token, which concluded a private sale of USD 33.6 million in May 2022.
In a letter to Bitcoin.com CEO Dennis Jarvis and the company’s legal counsel Joseph Collement, lawyers representing Block claim that Bitcoin.com’s use of “Verse” constitutes a breach of the registered trademark under German trademark law. The letter, dated August 10, 2022, was a follow-up to a July 4, 2022 notice in which Block, Bird & Bird’s legal counsel first laid out its trademark infringement case in Germany. A person familiar with the matter shared the letter with Cointelegraph.
The alleged trademark violation stems from Block’s acquisitions of Verse Technologies Inc. and Decentralized Global Payments SL in 2020. “Verse and Decentralized’s wallet also included a peer-to-peer payment app under the name ‘VERSE’. Since the acquisition, our client has been operating this app,” the letter said.
Block’s legal counsel explained that the “VERSE” app is available in Europe, including Germany, and can be accessed on both Apple and Android devices. The letter detailed Block’s rights to a figurative mark containing the word “Verse” as well as the “VERSE” word mark, with priority for software and mobile application software.
“The use of the name ‘VERSE’ constitutes an infringement of our client’s trademarks according to German trademark law”, The letter concluded, adding:
“Therefore, our client has claims against you to cease and desist the infringing acts. In addition, our client claims information about the extent of the infringing acts, as well as compensation for all damages that our client has suffered or will suffer as a result of the infringement. Finally, our client is also entitled to reimbursement for the costs we have incurred in connection with this letter.”
Block’s legal counsel requested that Bitcoin.com sign a cease and compromise statement by August 17, 2022, or face further legal action. He also requested that Bitcoin.com “cease and desist” its operations with Verse tokens in the European Union or face a contractual penalty of USD 10,400 (10,000 euros) “for each case of contravention.” Block also requested that he be reimbursed for legal expenses in the amount of $3,906.54 (3,744.50 euros).
Bitcoin.com is owned by early Bitcoin (BTC) investor Roger Ver, who was CEO until August 1, 2019. Bitcoin.com operates a digital asset exchange and wallet and provides daily news on the cryptocurrency market. Many in the cryptocurrency community know Ver for his strong support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which emerged in 2017 after abandoning the original Bitcoin blockchain due to philosophical differences around scalability and speed of transactions. However, its supporters believe that BCH aligns more with the vision set out for Bitcoin in Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2008 white paper.
Founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, Block dropped its name from Square in December 2021 and focused on Blockchain and Bitcoin technology. Dorsey has increasingly focused on Bitcoin payment hardware and solutions since stepping down as CEO of Twitter in November 2021.
Ver and Dorsey have been involved in personal disputes over the years, including in 2019 when Ver accused Dorsey of supporting the Lightning Network over his alleged romantic relationship with Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark. Some have speculated that these personal issues are why Twitter never verified the Bitcoin.com account when Dorsey was CEO.
My theory for why @Jack is so irrationally hot for #LightningNetwork is because he has / had a romantic relationship with @starknessthe CEO of @lightning
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) August 10, 2019
The Verse token at the center of the legal dispute is publicly announced on the Bitcoin.com Twitter page. Verse is described by its creators as a “cross-chain token” focused on expanding into chains of low-cost Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs). It has a fixed supply of 210 billion tokens distributed over seven years. Its private sale, which concluded last May, raised $33.6 million.
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