Adventist.com Owner Can’t Attack Church’s Mark, Fed. Cir. Says

Domain-seller Philanthropist.com couldn’t petition to cancel the General Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists’ “Adventist” trademark registration just because it owned adventist.com and received a legal threat, the Federal Circuit affirmed.

Philanthropist.com said its economic interest in the mark—combined with a cease and desist letter from GCCSDA gave it a “statutory cause of action” to ask the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to cancel the mark. But the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed the TTAB dismissal of the petition without an opinion, awarding costs to GCCSDA.

The panel appeared to accept GCCSDA’s argument that Philanthropist.com had never used the domain and had ...