Opinion ID: 152607
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether Seventh-day Adventism Can Be Trademarked

Text: The existence and extent of trademark protection for a particular term depends on that term's inherent distinctiveness. Courts have identified four general categories of terms: (1) generic, (2) descriptive, (3) suggestive, and (4) arbitrary or fanciful. Bath & Body Works, Inc. v. Luzier Personalized Cosmetics, Inc., 76 F.3d 743, 748 (6th Cir.1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). If a mark's primary significance is to describe a type of product rather than the producer, it is generic.... Nartron Corp. v. STMicroelectronics, Inc., 305 F.3d 397, 404 (6th Cir.2002). A generic mark cannot be protected as a trademark. Leelanau Wine Cellars, Ltd. v. Black & Red, Inc., 502 F.3d 504, 513 (6th Cir.2007). McGill argues that Seventh-day Adventism refers to a religion, is therefore a generic term, and thus cannot be trademarked. [4] McGill's argument is certainly logical: well-known terms that society understands to refer to a particular faith in general are generic, and no single party can prevent others from using them. See, e.g., Christian Science Bd. of Dirs. of the First Church of Christ, Scientist v. Evans, 105 N.J. 297, 520 A.2d 1347, 1352-53 (1987) (Christian Science is a religion and therefore a generic name not entitled to trademark); McDaniel v. Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, 27 N.Y.S.2d 525, 527 (N.Y.Sup.Ct. 1941) (holding that Baha'ism is a religion and that the use of word Baha'i could not be enjoined because members of the same religion[ ] have an equal right to use the name of the religion); New Thought Church v. Chapin, 159 A.D. 723, 724-25, 144 N.Y.S. 1026 (N.Y.App.Div.1913) (denying injunction because plaintiffs claimed that New Thought referred to a religion and they could not claim a monopoly of teaching this form of religious faith); cf. TE-TA-MA Truth Found.-Family of URI, Inc. v. World Church of the Creator, 297 F.3d 662, 666 (7th Cir.2002) (Church of the Creator describes a Christian denomination, not a religion, and is not generic); Nat'l Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is Under the Hereditary Guardianship, Inc. v. Nat'l Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is, Inc., 150 U.S.P.Q. 346, 354 (N.D.Ill.1966) (enjoining defendants' use of Baha'i because the public has come to recognize the designation[ ] `Baha'i' ... as identifying the [plaintiff organization] and the Baha'i Faith as administered by [it]). This circuit has held that [w]hether a name is generic is a question of fact. Bath & Body Works, 76 F.3d at 748. The appropriate test for genericness is whether the public perceives the term primarily as the designation of the article. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). It would be inappropriate to conclude as a matter of law, regardless of the evidence that could be adduced (and that was presented at summary judgment in this case), that the public considers Seventh-day Adventist to refer generically to a religion. [5] See Gen. Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists v. Seventh-Day Adventist Congregational Church, 887 F.2d 228, 230-31 (9th Cir.1989) (judgment on the pleadings was improper because defendants argued that Seventh-day Adventism was a religion and thus generic); Gen. Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists v. Perez, 97 F.Supp.2d 1154, 1162 (S.D.Fla.2000) (court, sitting as factfinder after a bench trial, found that Seventh-day Adventist referred to the plaintiffs' church, not a religion, in the eyes of the public); Stocker v. Gen. Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists, 39 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1996 WL 427638, at -17 (Trademark Tr. & App. Bd.1996) (reviewing testimony, reference materials, and survey evidence and concluding that petitioners had not met burden of establishing genericness for cancellation of trademark). But see Gen. Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventist v. Seventh-Day Adventist Kinship, Int'l, Inc., No. CV 87-8113, 1991 WL 11000345, at -7 (C.D.Cal. Oct.7, 1991) (holding, apparently as a matter of law, that Seventh-day Adventist has a dual meaning, referring to the church and to adherents of the religion, and that a support group for gay and lesbian followers could use the term; but also noting that the result might be different if the defendants had used Seventh-day Adventist as part of a church's name). McGill makes one last effort to secure a legal ruling of genericness. He argues that the plaintiffs here should be collaterally estopped from denying that Seventh-day Adventist refers to a religion because that issue was decided in Benn v. Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 304 F.Supp.2d 716 (D.Md.2004). In Benn, a student in Trinidad injured himself on a weekend retreat sponsored by an organization affiliated with the General Conference's church, and he sued the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in tort. The district court found that there is no legal entity known as the `Seventh-Day Adventist Church' and further remarked that the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is a religion, not a cognizable legal entity. Id. at 721. Inferring that the student intended to sue the General Conference (one of the plaintiffs in the instant case), the court noted that it could substitute that entity as the defendant. But because the General Conference is an unincorporated corporation, the district court had to consider the citizenship of its constituent unions and missions for diversity purposes. Some of those constituent parts were aliens, like the student himself, destroying diversity. Id. at 721-22. The case therefore turned on the fact that the student had sued a nonentity and that the substitution of the entity he had intended to sue removed subject-matter jurisdiction. Thus, collateral estoppel does not apply because the issue of whether Seventh-day Adventism is a religion, even if it were actually decided, was not necessary to the outcome in Benn. See Schreiber v. Philips Display Components Co., 580 F.3d 355, 367 (6th Cir.2009). McGill has a stronger claim for judicial estoppel based on arguments made by the General Conference Corporation in a memorandum in Benn, which McGill included in the record in the district court. The plaintiff-student in Benn added the General Conference Corporation as a defendant in his amended complaint. In opposing the student's motion to file a second amended complaint, the General Conference Corporation contended that dismissal was required and argued the following: By naming the `Seventh-day Adventist Church' as a defendant, Plaintiff attempts to sue a religion rather than a religious institution.... [T]he Seventh-day Adventist Church is a religion that may be treated as an `unincorporated association' only by resorting to an unconstitutional fiction. Benn, No. 03-330, Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. for Leave to File Second Am. Compl. (filed as attachment to McGill's Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss, Doc. 30-11). We have previously discussed the contours of judicial estoppel: The doctrine of judicial estoppel bars a party from (1) asserting a position that is contrary to one that the party has asserted under oath in a prior proceeding, where (2) the prior court adopted the contrary position either as a preliminary matter or as part of a final disposition. A court should also consider whether the party has gained an unfair advantage from the court's adoption of its earlier inconsistent statement. Although there is no set formula for assessing when judicial estoppel should apply, it is well-established that at a minimum, a party's later position must be clearly inconsistent with its earlier position for judicial estoppel to apply. Moreover, the doctrine of judicial estoppel is applied with caution to avoid impinging on the truth-seeking function of the court because the doctrine precludes a contradictory position without examining the truth of either statement. Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Chester, Willcox & Saxbe, LLP, 546 F.3d 752, 757 (6th Cir.2008) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). It is clear that the General Conference Corporation gained no unfair advantage in Benn from that court's crediting its argument that Seventh-day Adventist Church refers to a religion. The dispositive points in that case were that Seventh-day Adventist Church was not a jural entity and that the intended defendant, the unincorporated General Conference, was not diverse from the plaintiff. Accordingly, judicial estoppel does not apply.