Source: http://www.dmlp.org/comment/1025
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 22:52:51+00:00

Document:
In late May, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued an opinion in Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, 2008 WL 22043807 (10th Cir. May 29, 2008). With this decision, the Tenth Circuit joins an expanding group of federal appeals courts holding that federal trademark law does not prohibit a noncommercial website's use of a trademark for purposes of commenting on or criticising the trademark owner. See, e.g., Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672 (9th Cir. 2005); Taubman v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770 (6th Cir. 2003); Falwell v. Lamparello, 420 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2005). The case is not your usual "gripe site" case, but instead involves a more subtle parody of an ideological opponent's website.
The controversy revolves around a website created in 2003 by Allen Wyatt, the webmaster and vice president of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), an organization that reponds to criticisms of the Mormon Church. Wyatt's website parodied the official website of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry (UTLM), an organization that publishes books and other materials critical of Mormonism. The parody site deliberately imitated the design elements of the UTLM website and replicated certain aspects of its textual layout, with slight modifications to convey a critical message. Wyatt placed no disclaimer on the site indicating that it was not affiliated with UTLM.
The Wyatt site contained no advertising and sold no goods or services. It had a number of external links to the website of a pro-Mormon organization at Brigham Young University, to the official website of the Mormon Church, and to articles on the FAIR website that were critical of the founders of UTLM. One link went to FAIR's homepage, which in turn linked to FAIR's online bookstore. Wyatt also bought ten domain names and redirected them all to his parody website. The domain names included www.utahlighthouse.com, www.uthahlighthouse.org, and others including the personal names of the founders of the UTLM.
Federal trademark infringement and unfair competition claims require a "commercial use" of the plaintiff's trademark -- in the language of the statute, a use "on or in connection with any goods or services." In this case, Wyatt's use of the "Utah Lighthouse" trademark was not commercial because the primary purpose of the parody site was expressive and it hosted no advertising, offered no goods or services for sale, and did not link to commercial sites (the link to the FAIR bookstore from FAIR's homepage was too "roundabout and attenuated"). The court expressly rejected UTLM's argument that the Wyatt site was commercial because it prevented Internet users from accessing UTLM's own goods and services, and its argument that using a trademark as a domain name is inherently commercial.
For purposes of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), use of a trademark in a domain name for a noncommercial website aimed at criticizing a trademark owner generally does not constitute "bad faith intent to profit." This holding is in line with two other federal appellate decisions interpreting the ACPA -- TMI Inc. v. Maxwell, 368 F.3d 433 (5th Cir. 2004), and Lucas Nursery & Landscaping v. Grosse, 359 F.3d 806 (6th Cir. 2004). What is unique here is that Wyatt registered ten domain names. Registering multiple domain names is a factor that ordinarily weighs in favor of "bad faith," but Wyatt's expressive motivation for doing so clearly won the day.

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