Court Opinion

ID: 9491978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:29:09.864503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:02.644724
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Mr. Ritchie has not established his standing to oppose these registrations. A person with no interest in the trademarks for which registration is sought — a “mere intermeddler,” Lipton Industries, a “self-appointed guardian of the register,” Selva & Sons — does not meet even the minimal statutory requirements of 15 U.S.C. § 1063. The Lanham Act was not designed to convert federal trademark proceedings into a forum for attack on the morality of the registrant.. Disapproval, by a member of the general public, of the applicant for registration, however notorious that applicant, does not provide standing to oppose registration of the applicant’s commercial trademarks.
The panel majority, expressing concern lest a trademark examiner exercise moral judgment, instead opens federal agency procedures to satellite litigation initiated by any person who disapproves on moral grounds of the applicant for registration and alleges that others may share his disapproval. The panel majority has created a dangerous and facile opportunity for the intermeddling public to burden commercial rights in which it has no interest, contravening the precedent of this court and the Supreme Court. In addition, this intrusion into commercial speech, through the federal trademark registration process, raises grave issues of constitutional dimension. Thus I must, respectfully, dissent.
A
The trademark opposition procedure has a useful and indeed necessary purpose, for it provides a mechanism for correction of an inadequacy that is inherent in the trademark examination process. It is clear that the agency search files can not contain every trademark and service mark in this vast commercial nation. Thus the Lanham Act, like its predecessor trademark statutes, authorizes any person who “believes he would be damaged” by a registration, 15- U.S.C. § 1063, to bring his or her concerns before the agency.
*1100The opposer must have an interest in the trademark such that its registration to another would damage the opposer. Precedent has explored the nature of this interest, and has established that the opposer must have a “real interest” in the proceeding, Lipton Industries, Inc. v. Ralston Purina Co., 670 F.2d 1024, 1028, 213 USPQ 185, 188 (C.C.P.A.1982), a “personal interest in the outcome of the case beyond that of the general public,” Jewelers Vigilance Committee, Inc. v. Ullenberg Corp., 823 F.2d 490, 493, 2 USPQ2d 2021, 2023 (Fed.Cir.1987). Applying this established precedent, the Board required Mr. Ritchie to show that he has a personal interest in the outcome beyond that of the general public. Since he filed the opposition as a member of the general public (a “family man”) the Board correctly held that the requisite showing was not made. The panel majority, now discarding decades of precedent, holds that a member of the general public can oppose the registration of trademarks owned by a person he finds offensive, provided only that he alleges that other members of the general public share his view.
The requirement that an opposer have an interest in the registration beyond that of the general public did not originate with Jewelers Vigilance or Lipton Industries, as the panel majority implies in now suggesting that these oft-cited cases spoke mere dicta. This requirement was part of our jurisprudence long before and indeed well after these cases. It has been steadfastly applied by the Federal Circuit, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. See, e.g., Books on Tape, Inc. v. The Booktape Corp., 836 F.2d 519, 520, 5 USPQ2d 1301, 1302 (Fed.Cir.1987) (“Petitioner, a competitor of respondent, clearly has an interest in the outcome beyond that of the general public and has standing”); International Order of Job’s Daughters v. Lindeburg & Co., 727 F.2d 1087, 1092, 220 USPQ 1017, 1020 (Fed.Cir.1984) (“Lindeburg has clearly demonstrated a ‘real interest’ in this cancellation proceeding. The allegations which Lindeburg made in its petition for cancellation regarding its longtime production and sale of merchandise with th'e Job’s Daughters emblem are fully supported”); Selva & Sons, Inc. v. Nina Footwear, Inc., 705 F.2d 1316, 1326, 217 USPQ 641, 648 (Fed.Cir.1983) (cancellation petitioner demonstrated “real interest” by alleging its mark was confusingly similar to registered trademark); Otto Roth & Co. v. Universal Foods Corp., 640 F.2d 1317, 1319-20, 209 USPQ 40, 41-42 (C.C.P.A.1981) (personal interest may arise from manufacture or sale of similar goods); Federated Foods, Inc. v. Fort Howard Paper Co., 544 F.2d 1098, 1100-01, 192 USPQ 24, 27 (C.C.P.A.1976) (“A party has standing to oppose within the meaning of ’13 if that party can demonstrate a real interest in the proceeding. ... Opposer’s real commercial interest in protecting its registered marks is manifest”); Vick Chemical Co. v. Thomas Kerfoot & Co., 80 F.2d 73, 77, 27 USPQ 393, 398 (C.C.P.A.1935) (cancellation petitioner must have “greater interest than a member of the general public”). In United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. Compo Shoe Machinery Corp., 56 F.2d 292, 12 USPQ 246 (C.C.P.A.1932), the court explained that while the opposition provision was intended to be liberally construed, it did not eliminate the requirement of an interest in the trademark beyond that of the general public: *1101United Shoe, 56 F.2d at 295, 12 USPQ at 249 (emphases added.)
*1100Sections 6 and 13 of [the Trademark Act of 1905] under which these proceedings were instituted, provide, respectively, that any one may oppose the registration of a mark “who believes he would be damaged by the registration” and that any person may apply at any time for cancellation whenever he “shall deem himself injured by the registration of a trade-mark in the Patent Office.” ...
These provisions are very broad, and should be broadly construed. Of course, Congress did not mean to grant these rights to a mere intermeddler, to one who had no interest in the use of the term, and thereby authorize such a person to interfere in the affairs of others and in the business of the Patent Office. Certainly the person seeking to cancel a registration or oppose an application for registration must have a greater interest than a member of the general public who by such registration suffers no invasion of his rights and privileges.
*1101The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has frequently applied this rule, determining, upon highly diverse facts, whether there exists a real interest. A sampling of Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cases illustrates the wide acceptance and continuing application of this rule. See, e.g., Universal City Studios Inc. v. Cleveland Museum of Natural History, 39 USPQ2d 1382, 1384, 1996 WL 414085 (TTAB 1996) (opposer, although not manufacturing or selling the identical goods, has “personal interest in the outcome of the case beyond that of the general public”); Stocker v. General Conference Corp. of Seventh-Day Adventists, 39 USPQ2d 1385, 1387 n. 4, 1996 WL 427638 (TTAB 1996) (members of denomination have “real interest in the proceeding” to cancel registration of their denomination’s name; “the record establishes each petitioner’s interest in the case beyond that of the general public”); Nabisco Inc. v. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., 40 USPQ2d 1251, 1255, 1995 WL 901930 (TTAB 1996) (“In order to establish standing, a party must plead and prove a ‘real interest’ in the case, that is, a personal interest in the outcome of the proceeding beyond that of the general public or a mere in-termeddler”); Order of Sons of Italy in America v. Profumi Fratelli Nostra Ag, 36 USPQ2d 1221, 1223, 1995 WL 596839 (TTAB 1995) (damage to personal reputation meets the “Federal Circuit [standard] that an oppo-ser need only show ‘a personal interest in the outcome of the case beyond that of the general public’ ”); Harjo v. Pro Football Inc., 30 USPQ2d 1828, 1830, 1994 WL 262249 (TTAB 1994) (in cancellation proceeding, Native Americans have a personal interest beyond that of the general public in contesting trademark asserted to be disparaging to them as Native Americans); Aries Systems Corp. v. World Book Inc., 26 USPQ2d 1926, 1930 n. 12, 1993 WL 222336 (TTAB 1993) (“applicant has an interest in this controversy beyond that of the general public”); Kelly Services Inc. v. Greene’s Temporaries Inc., 25 USPQ2d 1460, 1462, 1992 WL 430461 (TTAB 1992) (“real interest in the proceeding, that is, an interest beyond that of the general public”); Estate of Biro v. Bic Corp., 18 USPQ2d 1382, 1384, 1991 WL 325858 (TTAB 1991) (estate of inventor, opposing registration of his name as a trademark for his invention, “has a personal interest in the outcome of this case beyond that of the general public”); Aruba v. Excelsior Inc., 5 USPQ2d 1685, 1686, 1987 WL 123878 (TTAB 1987) (Commonwealth of Aruba has a “real interest in the outcome of [the] case beyond that of the general public” to oppose the mark “Aruba” for swimwear); Intersat Corp. v. Int’l Telecommunications Satellite Organization, 226 USPQ 154, 155, 1985 WL 72067 (TTAB 1985) (“The purpose of the requirement of standing is to avoid litigation where there is no real controversy between the parties. That is to say, the standing requirement weeds out ‘intermeddlers’ from those with a ‘personal interest in the outcome beyond that of the general public’ ”); Bromberg v. Carmel Self Service, Inc., 198 USPQ 176, 179, 1978 WL 21770 (TTAB 1978) (women have standing to oppose registration of a trademark derogatory to them as women).
Precedent has not departed from the requirement that an opposer have a personal interest in the outcome of the ease beyond that of the general public. This requirement, while liberally construed, has not, until today, been negated. The ruling of the panel majority also misapplies the. Supreme Court’s decision in Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972), wherein the Court reinforced the requirement of a personal interest in administrative action beyond that of the general public. The Sierra Club, asserting a “special interest in the conservation and sound maintenance of the national parks,” had sought to restrain the Department of the Interior from approving a skiing development in the Sequoia National Forest. While the Court recognized that a person may acquire standing through injury other than economic harm, the Court cautioned that “broadening the categories of injury that may be alleged in support of standing is a different matter from abandoning the requirement that the party seeking review must have himself suffered an injury.” The Court denied standing to the Sierra Club, explaining:
*1102The requirement that a party seeking review must allege facts showing that he is himself adversely affected does not insulate executive action from judicial review, nor does it prevent any public interests from being protected through the judicial process. It does serve as at least a rough attempt to put the decision as to whether review mil be sought in the hands of those who have a direct stake in the outcome. That goal would be undermined were we to construe the APA to authorize judicial review at the behest of organizations or individuals who seek to do no more than vindicate, their, own value preferences through the judicial process.
405 U.S. at 740, 92 S.Ct. 1361 (emphases added). Sierra Club supports the rule of United Shoe and the many subsequent cases that bind us, requiring an opposer to have a personal interest beyond that of the general public. On these solidly entrenched criteria, Mr. Ritchie has not established his standing to oppose the registration of these trademarks.
B
Mr. Ritchie states that he opposes these registrations because he disapproves of Mr. Simpson’s morality and therefore of the “reprehensible” connotations of his name. Our view of Mr. Simpson’s morality is as irrelevant as Mr. Ritchie’s view, and lends no weight to the asserted standing to oppose registration' of these trademarks. Neither Mr. Ritchie nor this court has legal right, moral authority, social responsibility, or judgmental power, to intrude into commercial trademark rights based on moral disapproval of the trademark owner. The Board analyzed the consequences of permitting Mr. Ritchie to contest the registrations as follows:
If we were to find that the present opposer has standing based on the allegations in his pleadings ... [t]hat would seem to open the way for any individual to challenge the registration of an individual’s or corporation’s trademark or service mark, where that individual opposer pleads, for example, that he or she is offended by the individual or corporate trademark applicant’s products or its hiring policies, political affiliation, environmental record, advertising campaigns, etc. We do not believe that Section 13 of the Lanham Act (which section sets out who may file an opposition) was intended to have such a result.
The Board’s analysis was both wise and correct, and its decision warrants affirmance, not reversal. Cf.. Conte Bros. Automotive, Inc. v. Quaker State-Slick 50, Inc., 165 F.3d 221, 236, 49 USPQ2d 1321, 1333 (3d Cir.1998) (“Expanding standing to parties such as Appellants would result in a great increase in marginal litigation in the federal courts and would not serve the underlying purposes of the Lanham Act — to ferret out unfair competitive methods and protect businesses from the unjust erosion of their good will and reputation.”)
Until today, neither the trademark office nor the courts has entertained an opposition or cancellation proceeding where the only purported interest in the outcome is that of the general public. Even the two Board cases upon which the panel majority places its heaviest reliance do not go that far. In Bromberg the opposers pled that the slogan was disparaging to them as women, and in Harjo the cancellation plaintiffs pled that the mark “Redskins” was disparaging to them as Native Americans. In contrast, the marks here opposed do not disparage Mr. Ritchie. Mr. Ritchie, acting to “vindicate [his] own value preferences,” Sierra Club, has not distinguished himself from the population at large. “Standing is not ‘an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable.’” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 566, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (rejecting as “beyond all reason” the argument that people who see elephants in the Bronx Zoo have standing to challenge a development project in Sri Lanka funded by a federal agency).
It is simply incorrect to open the trademark tribunals to the litigation of moral preferences by persons with no real interest in the trademark. See Daphne Robert Leeds, The New Trade-Mark Manual 85 (1947) (“An opposition is not directed towards the public interest, but has as its purpose the protection of the opposer’s rights.”) Al*1103though the majority argues that the issue is not “the morals of the applicant,” but the “public perception” of immorality if these marks are used on goods, such perception is not the personal interest that grants legal standing to oppose registration. See Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, 804, 105 S.Ct. 2965, 86 L.Ed.2d 628 (1985) (tribunals should “avoid deciding questions of broad social import where no individual rights would be vindicated”). The requirement of a “direct stake in the outcome” is particularly apt when the property at issue involves purely commercial rights. The forum for exercise of the moral preferences of the general public is the cash register for the trademarked goods — not the trademark register.
C
I do not fully explore, on the incomplete record and argument presented, the constitutional issues implicit in the majority’s interpretation of the trademark statute. I mention them to illustrate the complexity of the issues implicit in this interpretation, for the “immoral” and “scandalous” terms of § 2(a) of the Lanham Act have stirred much commentary as a matter of the First Amendment and commercial speech. The panel majority protests that the question before us is not whether these marks constitute immoral or scandalous matter, but the narrower question of whether Mr. Ritchie has standing. I agree. But at the threshold of judicial and administrative process the standing aspect raises cogent questions when, as here, an uninvolved, undamaged person becomes authorized to challenge the right to federal trademark benefits based on his disapproval of the morals of the trademark applicant.
The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals was presented with a constitutional challenge to § 2(a) in In re McGinley, 660 F.2d 481, 211 USPQ 668 (C.C.P.A.1982), aff'g 206 USPQ 753, 1979 WL 24807 (TTAB 1979).
The Board had refused registration of a mark of explicit nudity. There was no issue of standing or the filing of an opposition, but simply the Board’s action in rejecting the application. The court avoided the constitutional issue by observing that the refusal to register a mark did not affect the common law right to use it, concluding that because no conduct was proscribed, First Amendment rights were not abridged.1 The affirmance of the Board’s refusal of registration has been criticized on constitutional grounds, as scholars have pointed out that denial of benefits may be viewed as an abridgement of speech protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., Melville B. Nimmer, Nimmer on Freedom of Speech 4-33 (1984) (“‘Abridging’ within the meaning of the First Amendment may occur even if the law in question does not by its terms either prohibit or punish speech”). Indeed, an abridgement may result from a law that merely burdens an exercise of speech. See, e.g., American Communications Ass’n v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 402, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950) (“Under some conditions, indirect ‘discouragements’ undoubtedly have the same coercive effect upon the exercise of First Amendment rights as imprisonment, fines, injunctions, or taxes”). The Court stated in Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972) that “even though a person has no ‘right’ to a valuable governmental benefit and even though the government may deny him the benefit for any number of reasons, ... [the government] may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech.”
Trademarks are a form of commercial speech. Friedman v. Rogers, 440 U.S. 1, 10 n. 9, 99 S.Ct. 887, 59 L.Ed.2d 100 (1979). In Central Hudson v. New York Pub. Sen. Comm’n, 447 U.S. 557, 563, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980) the Court discussed *1104the permissible limits of governmental restraint of commercial speech as follows:
[W]e must determine whether the expression is protected by the First Amendment. For commercial speech to come within that provision, it at least [1] must concern lawful activity and not be misleading. Next, we ask [2] whether the asserted governmental interest is substantial. If both inquiries yield positive answers, we must determine [3] whether the regulation directly advances the governmental interest asserted, and [4] whether it is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest.
Regulation of commercial speech may guard against such wrongs as fraud and false advertising, but not as a matter of suppression of social content. See, e.g., R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 389, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992) (“a State may not prohibit only that commercial advertising that depicts men in a demeaning fashion”); Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prods. Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 71-72, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) (“[a]t least where obscenity is not involved, the fact that [commercial speech] may be offensive to some does not justify its suppression”); Carey v. Population Servs. Int’l, 431 U.S. 678, 701, 97 S.Ct. 2010, 52 L.Ed.2d 675 (1977) (“[that] advertisements of contraceptive products would be offensive and embarrassing to those exposed to them, and that permitting them would legitimize sexual activity of young people [are] classically not justifications validating suppression of expression”); Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens’ Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 765, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976) (“tasteless and excessive” commercial speech is not stripped of First Amendment protection). The Court stated in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989) discussing the political speech of flagburning: “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
These concerns emphasize the potential for abuse in this court’s now removing the requirement that an opposer must have a real interest, a personal interest beyond that of the general public, in order to have standing to oppose a trademark registration. Moral indignation is not such an interest; the trademark tribunals do not serve the busybody and moral cop. The commercial benefits of trademark registration can not be withheld merely because of the registrant’s unpopularity or notoriety.
My concern is not with Mr. Ritchie’s expression of his conscience, the expression of which I unstintingly defend. However, if there is here pitted a conflict of freedoms, Mr. Ritchie’s right to abhor Mr. Simpson’s persona does not grant him standing to deprive Mr. Simpson of the right of statutory trademark registration. These are not incompatible rights, and in a society of freedom and law, both are privileged.

. The panel majority also takes this position. I remark only that this ruling has received much criticism. See, e.g., Jendi Reiter, Redskins and Scarlet Letters: Why "Immoral" and "Scandalous" Trademarks Should Be Federally Registrable, 6 Fed. Cir. Bar. J. 191 (1996); Theodore H. Davis, Jr., Registration of Scandalous, Immoral, and Disparaging Matter Under Section 2(a) of the Lan-ham Act: Can One Man's Vulgarity be Another's Registered Trademark, 83 Trademark Reporter 801 (1993); Stephen Baird, Moral Intervention in the Trademark Arena: Banning the Registration of Scandalous and Immoral Trademarks, 83 Trademark Reporter 661 (1993).