Bill Bode, the lawyer behind the class action suit against Network Solutions Inc and the National Science Foundation say he intends to file for a hearing before the full appeals court, an en banc hearing, having lost a decision handed down by a three- judge panel last week. However, Bode cautions that such a hearing is discretionary and if the request is turned down, he will pursue the only remaining option, the US Supreme Court.
A three-judge panel in the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC upheld a 1998 ruling on Friday that said NSI is permitted to charge a fee for domain name registration services over and above its costs, and that NSI is exempt from antitrust litigation as it is working under a federal government contract. It also found that although the portion of the fee that was siphoned off for development of next generation internet technologies constitutes an improper tax, its collection had been authorized retroactively last year by an act of Congress and therefore was legitimate. Bode says last week’s judgement was not a sound ruling on all counts, including the part that said he is not entitled to sue NSI for antitrust violations because he is not a competitor of the company. Bode says he will file within 30 days.
