Verisign Spokesperson Brian O'Shaughnessy on a Motion to Dismiss: "It's a fairly arcane court procedure."

For the non-lawyers (and that's you, Brian), it's the rare case that doesn't have a motion to dismiss. It's about as arcane in litigation as .COM is in the namespace. 

I caught the tail end of this morning's argument on ICANN's Motion to Dismiss Verisign's Complaint. The news is that the Court has dismissed Verisign's First Cause of Action -- the antitrust claim under the Sherman Act -- with 15 days leave to amend. The Court did not rule on the other aspects of ICANN's motion or on ICANN's anti-SLAPP motion (in fact, the Court noted that it hadn't even read the anti-SLAPP motion).

The reason the Court took such a narrow focus is that the only basis for Verisign, a California corporation, to assert a claim in federal court against ICANN, a California non-profit, is by asserting a claim under federal law. The Sherman Act claim is the only federal claim Verisign made. As a consequence, if the Sherman Act claim is ultimately dismissed without leave to amend, as seems probable now, what's left of the case (essentially breach of contract claims) will move to state court. Today the Court gave Verisign 15 days to see if it can amend its complaint to state a valid Sherman Act claim. If it can't, the federal court will lose jurisdiction and send the breach of contract claims to state court.

News Follow-up:  AP Story, Declan McCullagh.