Manifold Finance and ENS Have Reached a Settlement Overcoming the eth.link Domain Dispute

The creator of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Manifold Finance have reached an agreement over the ownership of the eth.link domain.

The ENS decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) settled with Manifold for $300,000 and secured the right to keep the domain name in a vote that ended on Monday.

Also, as a result of a vote by the ENS DAO on February 26, ENS Labs will get back the $750,000 they spent on legal fees.

This settlement concludes an 18-month legal dispute that began when ENS Labs sued Manifold in an Arizona District Court, along with domain registrars GoDaddy and Dynadot.

A court prohibition prevented the transfer of the domain from ENS Labs’ control. Manifold sought a $300,000 payment from ENS Labs as part of the settlement conditions, which also included non-disclosure and confidentiality provisions.

The parties would then come to an agreement, which would dismiss the lawsuit and let ENS Labs keep the eth.link domain name.

ENS, which functions as a blockchain-based equivalent to the conventional Domain Name System (DNS), enables the conversion of domain names to IP addresses to improve browser accessibility.

ENS employs the eth.link domain to facilitate the operation of ENS-based domains, given that the two systems are incompatible in a direct manner.

Former owner of the eth.link domain was Virgil Griffith, an early ENS contributor. His imprisonment for helping North Korea evade sanctions meant that the domain’s ownership would expire in July 2022.

Manifold acquired the domain eth.link in an auction on Dynadot in September 2022 after its registrant, GoDaddy, let it expire.

Arizona District Judge John Tuchi ordered Dynadot to unlock eth.link, allowing ENS to restore possession, after months of legal discussions. This occurred in July 2023.

GoDaddy and ENS have made up and are now working together. Holders of .eth ENS domains may freely connect their domains with conventional domains as part of this partnership.

Meanwhile, ENS co-founder Nick Johnson has voiced grave concerns over blockchain domain name patent applications by Unstoppable Domains.

Last November, Johnson accused Unstoppable Domains of stealing ENS’ open source innovations by filing these patent applications, in an open letter he sent to the firm.

“Everything we’ve done is accessible to the public under open-source licenses, and our standards are ready for anybody to use,” Johnson said.

Our dedication to these principles has prevented us from seeking patents for our work. On the other hand, Unstoppable Domains has started doing the same thing, even if it says it believes in open innovation.

It was earlier this year that Unstoppable Domains received a single patent with the number US11558344 and the subject “Resolving Blockchain Domains.”

According to Johnson, this patent does not provide any new ideas and is based solely on advances created by ENS.

According to him, Unstoppable Domains has kept on pursuing further patents, such as one for the reservation of names that sound like the “Sunrise Phase” that has been around for a long time in the DNS sector.

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