The legal dispute with Lantah continued till August even after Telegram was forced to leave its TON project.
Telegram Messenger Inc. will pay fees worth $625,000 to crypto firm Lantah LLC which the messaging platform sued in 2018. At the time, Telegram sued the crypto firm for using ‘GRAM’ as its crypto ticker and trademark.
On the 2nd of November, a U.S. district court judge Charles Breyer ordered Telegram to pay Lantah $618,240 in attorney fees. The fund would serve as compensation for the attorney fees Lantah incurred during the legal battle. The fees was concluded at $600 per hour for 1,030.4 hours of work. Although, Lantah demanded an hourly rate of $900. In addition, Telegram will pay Lantah an extra $6,737.35 in costs.
Telegram and Lantah Story
In May 2018, Telegram sued Lantah for trademark infringement, accusing the crypto firm of using the ‘GRAM’ crypto ticker. The messaging platform further accused Lantah of unfair competition. Also, Telegram claimed Lantah was trying to launch GRAM tokens.
Before then, Telegram had secured $1.7 billion in an initial coin offering (ICO) for GRAMs. GRAM was the native for Telegram Open Network (TON) or TON Blockchain, which Telegram has abandoned.
In June 2018, Lantah filed a countersuit in reaction to the allegations by Telegram. Lantah argued that it had filed the GRAM ticker with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since 2017.
The legal dispute continued till August after Telegram was forced to leave its TON project.
Telegram Abandons TON Blockchain
After Telegram raised $1.7 billion in its GRAM ICO, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the tokens were unlawfully sold. The SEC filed that Telegram conducted an unregistered ICO, and it is in “violation of the registration provisions of Securities Act of 1993.”
Shortly after, the founder of Telegram Pavel Durov announced the discontinuation of the blockchain project. Durov also said that the best engineers have been working on the TON blockchain for years. As noted by the founder, TON would have been superior to Bitcoin and Ethereum in speed and scalability.
Furthermore, the U.S. court ordered that GRAMs should not be distributed not only in the U.S. but globally.
Popularly known as the “Crypto Mom,” U.S. SEC commissioner Hester Peirce expressed her displeasure in the commission’s actions against Telegram. The commissioner revealed her dissatisfaction with the SEC during the Singapore Blockchain Week Virtual event on the 21st of July.
Stating that her views are personal, Peirce said the SEC’s act would discourage innovators from setting up their businesses in the US.
Amid the legal conflict with Lantah, Telegram has added new features to its messaging app. The new features are available to its 400 million monthly active users on both android and iOS.
Now, Telegram users can share live locations and pin multiple messages on the app. In addition, users will be able to send multiple music tracks to friends. Also, the new features included new emojis like vampires and zombies.