Emmanuel Gillet

Blockchain & Law

The battle for the promising .WALLET

Crypto wallets are the gateway to digital assets and the metaverse — which makes .WALLET one of the most coveted strings in blockchain naming, and the theatre of a revealing legal battle. Unstoppable Domains and Gateway (Handshake ecosystem) both operate identical .WALLET extensions, and their conflict reached the US District Court for Delaware: Unstoppable invokes an unregistered common law trademark and the erosion of customer trust; Gateway counters with the absence of any valid mark over a generic term and freedom of commerce — with the Supreme Court's Booking.com precedent looming over the debate. The article shows how the coexistence of identical TLDs depreciates every domain created under them, exposing the governance vacuum of blockchain naming compared with the ICANN-coordinated DNS. It sketches three ways out: a trademark-based monopoly, assumed coexistence, or operator collaboration around a contractual code of ethics — possibly with ICANN.

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Blockchain & Law

Web3: New Opportunities and Growing Threats for Brands

Web3 offers brands a double-edged frontier. On the opportunity side, NFTs let houses like Nike and Gucci engage consumers through virtual experiences and authenticated digital goods. On the threat side, anyone can mint an NFT reproducing a trademark — the MetaBirkins litigation (Hermès v. Rothschild) being the emblematic case — and blockchain domains such as .eth or .sol live in a decentralised, minimally regulated space with no equivalent of the UDRP. Litigation remains costly and out of reach for most brands, while decentralisation defeats traditional enforcement and calls for international cooperation. The article closes with a proactive playbook: register trademarks in classes 9 and 42, monitor NFT marketplaces actively, pursue rapid takedowns, and secure blockchain domains before others do — because in Web3, prevention is worth far more than cure.

Counterfeiting · Web3 Domains

11 February 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

Blockchain & Law

.ROBOT: A CryptoTLD Aiming for Its DNS Twin

Unstoppable Domains announced on 3 November 2025 its intention to apply for the .ROBOT top-level domain in ICANN's 2026 round, in partnership with the 0G Foundation. The ambition: a namespace dedicated to robotics and artificial intelligence operating simultaneously in the traditional DNS and on the 0G blockchain, where a Web3 pre-sale is already live with minting expected in early 2026. The article uses this case to explain the emerging 'twinTLD' model — a blockchain extension seeking its exact double in the DNS to preserve on-chain functionality while gaining Web2 legitimacy. It also anticipates the procedural path ahead: possible competing applications, ICANN evaluations and objections, and a potential last-resort auction. For brand owners, the article recommends defensive registrations, multi-domain blocking mechanisms and closer monitoring of on-chain activity, as Web2 and Web3 identities increasingly need to be managed as one continuum.

ICANN · New gTLDs · Web3 Domains

4 November 2025

Initially published on iptwins.com

Third-Party Liability

Lacoste v Shein: When a Platform Can No Longer Hide Behind Hosting Status

A platform is not one legal object. In Lacoste v Roadget Business Pte. Ltd. and Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd. (Paris, Pôle 5 ch. 1, 8 July 2026, RG 25/12454), the Court of Appeal refused to let the operators of shein.com shelter behind the hosting exemption of Article 6 of the Digital Services Act: goods “sold by Shein”, Shein labels and packaging, and the Commission’s designation of the service as a very large online platform revealed a hybrid activity, and the characterisation attached not to the platform as a whole but to the role actually played in the disputed transactions. The judgment reaches beyond the twenty offending products. “Lacoste”, typed into the internal search engine, infringes the word marks; “crocodile”, a free word, grounds unfair competition and parasitism. Interim damages rise from €30,000 to €300,000 — the defendants’ own failure to disclose their turnover counting against them — and the measures run across the European Union.

Counterfeiting · Court Litigation · European Digital Law · Marketplace Enforcement · Trademark Law

28 August 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

Domain Name Law

COSHIELD: The Scope of the UDRP in Trademark Disputes

Not every dispute involving a trade mark and a domain name amounts to cybersquatting. In Polyco Healthline Limited v. David Beatson (WIPO Case No. D2026-1893), the panelist denied the complaint brought against coshield.com, a domain used since 2020 to sell personal protective equipment in the very sector where the complainant has exploited its SHIELD trade mark since 1997, and despite a settlement agreement concluded between the parties in 2021. The decision turns on the moment of acquisition: created in 2014, the domain name appears to have changed hands in May 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the combination of “Co” and “Shield” could describe the business rather than target Polyco. The evidence being “finely balanced”, bad faith was not established. This article examines why trade mark infringement and cybersquatting are two paths that do not necessarily converge.

Cybersquatting · Domain Name Law · Trademark Law · UDRP

23 August 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

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Article Information

Author

Emmanuel Gillet

Publication Date

8 September 2022

Jurisdiction

Topics

Industry

Related Decision(s)

1:22-cv-00948U.S. District Court, District of DelawareUnstoppable Domains Inc. v. Gateway Registry, Inc., James Stevens and Does 1-100, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Case No. 1:22-cv-00948

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