The ongoing battle between DraftKings Inc. and its former executive, Michael Hermalyn, remains contentious, with the District of Massachusetts’ decision to enforce Hermalyn’s non-compete now appealed and argued to the First...more
Recently, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued an opinion in Beteiro, LLC v. DraftKings Inc.[1] This case is yet another case where the Federal Circuit upheld invalidity under § 101. Here, the patents...more
Beteiro, LLC v. DraftKings Inc., No. 2022-2275, 2024 WL 3077636 (Fed. Cir. June 21, 2024) - On June 21, 2024, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court for the District of New Jersey’s dismissal of Beteiro, LLC’s...more
All bets are off in a Boston-based dispute between DraftKings Inc. and one of its former vice presidents. On April 30, 2024, the District of Massachusetts granted DraftKings a twelve-month preliminary injunction preventing...more
A crackdown on online "pick'em"-style contests in Florida could be a sign of what's to come as state regulators struggle to keep up with the rapidly changing world of daily fantasy sports and legalized sports wagering....more
On the heels of recent legal setbacks and challenges for NFT collections offered by Dapper Labs and DraftKings, the New York Attorney General (NYAG) filed suit in New York state court against the parent companies of...more
On March 9, 2023, a putative class action was filed against DraftKings Inc. for alleged violations of federal securities laws in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The class, if certified, will include...more
You read that right. The exact quote from the Second Circuit’s March 21, 2022 decision in Olsen v. Major League Baseball, Docket No. 20-1831, reads as follows:...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found in a recent inter partes review—DraftKings Inc. v. Interactive Games LLC—that DraftKings’ proposed combination of prior art would have been obvious when Interactive Games’ mobile...more
On May 25, 2021, the Connecticut General Assembly enacted legislation authorizing retail and online sports betting, online casino gaming and online daily fantasy sports (DFS), to be offered exclusively by the Connecticut...more
The MLB, Houston Astros, and Boston Red Sox have secured the dismissal of a fantasy baseball lawsuit over the electronic sign-stealing scandal....more
The New York Appellate Division dealt a shocking blow to the fantasy sports industry by ruling earlier this month that daily fantasy sports contests are a form of gambling and that the law passed by New York in 2016...more
A fantasy baseball participant filed a putative class action against the MLB and one of its affiliates, the Houston Astros, and the Boston Red Sox over the recent electronic sign-stealing scandal that is rocking the sport....more
It is a legal maxim that arbitration is a creature of contract. A recent District of Massachusetts decision explores critical questions about when that creature can exist outside of the confines of a binding agreement to...more
Recently, the Seventh Circuit affirmed that fantasy sports operators, such as FanDuel and Draft Kings, do not violate a student athlete’s right of publicity under Indiana law by using their name, image and likeness without...more
Plaintiff-Appellants Akeem Daniels, Cameron Stingily, and Nicholas Stoner were collegiate student–athletes between 2014¬2016. Their on-field performances were collected as numerical statistics and published by various...more
Interactive fantasy sports (“IFS”) is a growing industry. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, Americans spend over $7 billion annually on IFS. And IFS’s appeal isn’t restricted to players—states like IFS for...more
On October 24, 2018, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that online fantasy sports operators, DraftKings, Inc. and FanDuel, Inc., were permitted to use former collegiate athletes’ names, pictures, and statistics without their...more
On July 13, 2017, daily fantasy sports providers DraftKings and FanDuel announced their decision to call off their proposed merger. Last month, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary...more
Vanguard CEO William McNabb announced plans yesterday to step down, a big announcement for the mutual fund giant that finds itself “in the middle of one of the biggest growth spurts ever experienced by a large asset...more
On June 20, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order blocking the daily fantasy sports (DFS) companies DraftKings and FanDuel from consummating their proposed...more
Although the Federal Trade Commission currently is short-handed with one Democrat and one Republican serving on the Commission (out of a normal lineup of five), today they showed that bi-partisan consensus still can exist in...more
On August 23, 2016, the two largest daily fantasy sports (“DFS”) operators, DraftKings and Fan Duel, will be presenting their proposed Nevada daily fantasy sports legislation (the “Proposed Bill”) to the Nevada Gaming Policy...more
Welcome to Sheppard Mullin’s Weekly Web Wrap-Up, a quick list of the past week’s top news in the social media, gaming, and virtual goods and currencies industries curated by Social Media & Games Team. Here are some of the...more
Alabama and Tennessee have become the most recent states to weigh in on the legality of daily fantasy sports (DFS) contests. Last week, the attorneys general of the two states issued opinions declaring such contests to be...more