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The Commerce Department has jurisdiction over the USPTO, meaning Lutnick is the boss of the USPTO Director John Squires. Squires, who became 60th director of the USPTO a year ago, has been publicly effusive in his praise of Lutnick.
More relevant to DraftKings is the fact that under his leadership, the patent office has moved to significantly limit access to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) – the very board to which the gaming company is appealing in an effort to have the Cantor patent annulled.
Both Squires and his predecessor, Coke Morgan Stewart, made it harder for filers to get in front of the PTAB, typically citing patent ages or court rulings.
About Sparta
Harrison Barrett, VP of business development, spoke to the iGB team at iGB L!VE 2026 to discuss the evolution of Soft2Bet’s MEGA platform, which started out as a purely gamification layer but has become “much more compelling than simply leaderboards, missions and point-based rewards”.
As Barrett puts it, MEGA is “ultimately a retention tool that helps our partners move away from heavy bonus and costs”.
With ice hockey and UFC-themed initiatives driving engagement in North America and a 45% lifetime value increase seen with the launch of MEGA Shoot, a player-versus-player simulation penalty shootout game initiative which launched during the World Cup, it is an exciting time for the Malta-based platform provider.
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The bitter, longstanding feud between Station Casinos and the Culinary Union in Las Vegas took another turn this month, this time to Washington, DC and the US Supreme Court.
On 4 September, Chief Justice John Roberts denied Station’s emergency request for a stay of a federal appeals court decision that ordered the company’s Red Rock Casino Resort Spa in Summerlin to comply with a National Labor Relations Board mandate and bargain in good faith with the union following a failed labour vote in late 2019. Roberts gave no explanation for the denial.
The NLRB ruled after the election that Red Rock took steps to prevent a fair union vote, and Red Rock sued in response, although the ruling was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last month. After the court denied a rehearing request on 6 August, it also subsequently denied Station’s request for a stay pending SCOTUS relief on 24 August.
