Kiwi man wins legal battle with mormon church over a family affair

and what a completely one sided story... did the author bother to find out why this action was so important to the church? Did he even bother to contact them as he did with Mr Sintes? There's not even a mention that the church 'declined to comment'. Organisations seldom spend thousands of dollars just for the sake of bullying. I'd like to hear what the church has to say. Otherwise this article is a waste of time.

There are some pretty wild assertions in this article. The Mormon church hardly goes around the world bullying people. In regards to this gentlemen, it sounds like he's just one of those folks who thinks that he has a cause. I'm pretty sure that none of the Mormon members' money was used to fight this legal battle. The LDS church is very careful with its members' money (and separates business and day-to-day administrative duties from strictly religious ones).

Alex - So where did the half million dollars the Church spent on legal fees come from? My understanding is that any money a church has is for religious purposes? "just one of those folks who thinks that he has a cause" helping people find their families sounds like a fair cause to me? Just because his cause doesn't come as part of a franchise uncreatively churned out for the masses like a McDonalds drive thru doesn't make it any less important. Judge not least ye be judged?

EU5912 - Do you not find it extraordinary that a Church has pursued this guy over the use of two extremely common words "Family" & "Search" ... What possible justification could there be?

I imagine this article is very embarrassing for the Mormon Church - perhaps you need to be asking questions of your church instead of jumping on the defensive... turn the other cheek? no?

Going after a non-prophet that unites LIVING families so the LDS can do their dead dunking? PITIFUL, just PITIFUL.

Mormons around the world should be ashamed of the callous uncaring actions of their church. But living in Utah, I know that many if not most of them do not give a hoot about non-Mormons.

It is just another case of Christian love coming from the LDS church. Taking legal actions against non-prophets doing very Christlike work, harassing people for kissing... One has to ask, are they really Christian at all?

If honest intentions were to unite familys and not to gain money. Everyone should be happy. Because the Church will surely reunite ten fold what this one person could ever do. I feel sorry for the church. They revolve around the strength of a family, The church does nothing but good around the whole world, things you would be amazed by if the time was taken to look at the good. Not turn the good into bad.
But I bet not one person talking bad about the church would take time to see the other side.
I do feel bad for the feelings that have been hurt. But we each have that very choice of how we will feel or react.

The LDS church is not a large religious body.It claims to have a world-wide membership of 13 million but an increasing number of ex mormons are organising themselves and claim the world membership is about 4 million.Many are becoming in-active or leaving as the Internet is getting to many of the US faithful and proving Joseph Smith was a fraud on the back of DNA research,lack of archeological evidence and the constant revision of the Book of Mormon story.It is all about dollars!

"Escalator" anyone?

This article is silent on the prime reason for the Church's action. Does anyone realize how many original pieces of intellectual property, such as trademarks, were lost by companies simply because the companies couldn't demonstrate to courts that they had been trying to keep the integrity of such?

This was a court battle fought not to bully but rather a legal requirement to keep the integrity of an organizations proprietary identity. If you can't demonstrate assertive attempts to protect a name then a court can eject all together your claim to a trademark.

Nothing about that mentioned in the article.

Please don't have your view of a religion be based on a story like this. There was no malevolent intent or desire, there was merely a desire to keep and preserve the overall efforts to protect the integrity of a service our church provides free to anyone on the planet who wishes to use it. Is trying to keep the integrity of that service's name something that's 'evil' or 'bullying' when our church spends, has spent, and continues to spend millions providing a service it doesn't charge for?

If anyone really thinks the fact that the two words are within the top 2% of English words needs to consider a few trademarks...

things like-

"happy meal"
"hot jobs"
"united way"
"red box"

If common usage of both words in the English language is grounds for not having claim to a trademark then I want to be able to use the above terms with impunity, along with others that I can concoct using just the top two percent of the most popular words found in a language. Let's see, with 171,000 words considered in current usage by oxford that gives me access to 3,400+ words I can combine. One wonders how many popular trademarks I can cop with such a liberating view on trademark law.

To me this sounds like identity theft on the part of Stines. FamilySearch is one of the most popular family history sites and maybe he hoped to piggyback off its success. I think organizations, corporations, and individuals have the right to protect their identity and websites. I remember a few years ago the domain oregonstategovernment.com was owned by an individual and he put some horrible information on the site that was x-rated. I can see why organizations would want to protect and buy up related domain names.

The Church has been using and registered the name "family search" years ago. Mr. Sintes could have as easily gone with "Family Find" or something that meant the same without stepping on the Church's property. The court ruling is a shame.

For those that say the LDS has the right to "Family find" on some legal grounds? Guess what THE COURTS RULED THAT THE LDS DOES NOT. Anyone making the claim that the LDS has a right to that trademark no longer has a legitimate point. The Courts ruled the LDS has no such claim. :LDS supporters, you lost get over it.

I found this article to very one sided and the negative comments about the church appear to be based purely on emotion and not on fact.

Regarding the church being only interested in money - If the LDS church is so concerned about money why do their church leaders not get paid? Why does the church spend so much time and money on free services such as family search? Why does the church yearly spend millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours to accomplish so many charitable acts? The LDS church leaders are not rich and they don't leave a legacy of money to their children when they die. The church has never had a major financial scandal and overall does good throughout the world. I have associated with church leaders and the money is always considered as if it were the "widow's mite". In other words they treat it sacredly. Furthermore, I always am amazed at the anger displayed toward the church on such minor issues such as this. To me it is just another indication the church is of God, because if it wasn't from God people wouldn't care...The Caravan Moves On!

Given his experiences with the mormon church, he has every right to grind his axe!

LDS, Inc. lost - hope it happens more often.

common words and initials should be available to everyone to use, like
national, N,
business, B, and
review R

so I can use NBR as a trademark for my own business reports, right?

Robert Smith fancies himself a reporter? What a hack. Is somebody actually paying him ?