Atlanta IP lawyer Sanford Asman isn't happy that CaseRails CEO Erik Dykema won't hand his company's name over to him—in fact, he's filed a trademark lawsuit over it, just as he said he would last month.

Asman believes that CaseRails is infringing his trademark rights to CaseWebs and CaseSpace, two websites that house his own litigation-management software. In fact, Asman believes any Web-based legal software with "case" in its name should be under his purview.

But even worse than having "Case" in his company's name, Dykema made the mistake of daring to discuss the ordeal with Ars Technica. And to Asman, the interview was pure defamation.

In an amended complaint (PDF), Asman maintains Ars' May 22 story about his case led to "numerous (unsuccessful) attempts to infiltrate" his websites, casewebs.com and casespace.com. And there's more:

Defendants Dykema, Zeller, and CaseRails… encouraged that website to publish derogatory comments as to Asman, and such publication did, in fact, take place, whereby, inter alia, (1) Asman was referred to as "Ass man"; (2) one of the readers of the blog apparently registered the domain "sanfordasman.com" and is using it to link to another website (namely, "The Scuzz Feed" which appears under the url, "sanfordasman.com") that Asman does not sponsor or endorse.

Writing "Ass Man" in a comment section isn't just mean talk on the Internet—to Asman, it's legally actionable defamation, and his lawsuit wants Dykema and CaseRails co-founder Kyle Zeller to pay.

The lawsuit states it's Dykema's "disclosure" and "providing information" that constitutes defamation. Neither Ars Technica nor any reader is named as a defendant.

“Slanted” article leads to “harassment”

"It appeared from your article that you had already decided how you were going to come out," Asman told me in a brief interview earlier this week.

"I thought the title of the article started in a slanted manner," he said. "The fact that it was expressed in terms of a trademark attorney goes after a small startup—it could have been reported as a trademark owner goes after three attorneys seeking to take over his name."

Asman said the fact that "the only attorney mentioned is me" also slants the article. I pointed out that the piece does describe the co-founders of CaseRails as attorneys as well.

"It was pretty well buried," he said.

In the complaint, Asman writes that Dykema, a professor of media law at New York University, "should have had knowledge as to the way that viewers of websites such as arstechnica.com would read and comment when a 'slanted' article was published."

Dykema's "portrayal of Asman as 'an attorney' who was seeking to inhibit the rights of a 'startup' company… without Defendants' disclosure that the so-called startup company was, itself, started by no fewer than two attorneys."

The suit claims that Dykema's goal was to "cause social media pressure, computer attacks and harassment" against Asman, getting him to "back down" in his trademark fight. Dykema's communication with Ars Technica "constituted defamation, inducement of defamation, harassment, computer trespass, and other such tortious conduct" that requires court action.

Asman also says that Dykema misquoted him when Dykema described in an interview how Asman threatened to sue him. "I always counsel my clients—and this advice I follow to the extreme—to never threaten suit," Asman said.

Asman's trademark lawsuit against CaseRails was filed on May 22, and he followed up with an amended complaint, which added the defamation claims on May 28. That's just two days after Asman became the first lawyer to ever sue the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filing a lawsuit claiming that the group's "Stupid Patent of the Month" feature defamed one of his clients, another attorney whose patents have been used in more than 100 lawsuits.

Update: Asman's lawsuit against EFF, on behalf of his client Scott Horstemeyer, has been dropped.

Dykema declined to comment.

Superior rights

The defamation claim comes near the end of Asman's 47-page pro se complaint, which is mostly focused on trademark matters and Asman's own background.

About 20 pages are dedicated to describing Asman's work in software development, going back to the first computer he purchased, a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I, for which he wrote a word processing package.

Ultimately, he moved to Web-based software, installed today at his websites casewebs.com and casespace.com. Asman describes his legal victory against an earlier company called Integrated Imaging.

"After consulting with three separate law firms, Integrated realized that Asman's superior rights to web-based legal software using a mark including the word 'case,' were far superior to Integrated's newly claimed right to use the 'CaseWorks Web' mark," he writes.

That case established Asman's "superior rights and title to 'Case' formative marks used on Web-based legal application software," he says.

Asman became aware of CaseRails when he received a marketing e-mail from them. He insists he isn't the one who started the trademark conflict, noting that CaseRails co-founder Zeller is an intellectual property attorney himself. "An IP attorney, you would expect they would do a trademark search," said Asman. "They have an opportunity to resolve this in many ways."