TechFlow News, March 18 — Vlad Zamfir, a core member of the Ethereum development team, has filed a civil lawsuit against blockchain project CasperLabs in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Zamfir alleges that CasperLabs engaged in false designation and unfair competition.
Plaintiff Vlad Zamfir, a core member of the Ethereum development team, previously developed the pioneering Correct-by-Construction (CBC) Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain consensus protocol. Around March 2015, he adopted the name "Casper" for his consensus protocol. On November 2, 2017, he released the draft of the CBC Casper PoS protocol, and in December 2018, published the CBC Casper Protocol Version 1.0 specification, establishing himself as the lead developer behind the Casper protocol upgrades. However, in October 2019, CasperLabs released a PoS blockchain architecture specification based on Zamfir’s research, naming it Highway. Then, around August 2020, CasperLabs began using the name Casper to describe its PoS protocol, applied for federal registration of the CASPER trademark, and launched sales of its CSPR token. The complaint states that CasperLabs violated the false designation provisions of the United States Code and California’s common law regarding unfair competition.
