Name Used To Confuse, Court Rules Idaho Ranchers Infringed On Group’s Protected Name

A group of Idaho ranchers knowingly infringed on a desert protection group’s legally protected trade name in order to confuse the public, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal magistrate’s ruling Tuesday prohibiting officials of a state and local Farm Bureau and a local cattlemen’s association from calling themselves the Committee for Idaho’s High Desert Inc.

The original committee was an environmental group organized in the late 1970s and incorporated in 1981. But after the group failed to file its annual report with the state in 1985, it forfeited its corporate charter.

James Yost, then-public affairs director of the Idaho Farm Bureau, discovered the error in 1993 during a clash with the committee over the recently declared federal protection of the Bruneau Hot Springs snail.

Within 24 hours, Yost and two other men registered an organization called the Committee for Idaho’s High Desert Inc. The other men were Ted Hoffman, president of the Owyhee Cattlemen’s Association, and Quey Johns, president of the Owyhee Farm Bureau.

The committee had assets of $120 and no other members, the court said.

At a January 1994 hearing on a proposed Air Force training range, Hoffman identified himself as president of the committee and supported the proposal, which the original committee opposed. He later testified that he had used the name in order to gain credibility as an environmentalist.

Yost has left the organization and now is natural resources analyst for Idaho Gov. Phil Batt’s delegation to the Northwest Power Planning Council.

Laird Lucas, lawyer for the original committee, called the ranchers’ actions “dirty tricks” and said a similar appropriation of a conservation group’s name was struck down in Arizona but went unchallenged in Wyoming.

But Gary Babbitt, a lawyer for the ranchers’ organization, disagreed with the court’s conclusion.

“I think the court overlooked the fact that the plaintiffs for 8-1/2 years blatantly violated the statutes of the state of Idaho by failing to register,” Babbitt said. He likened it to failing to file income taxes.

Lucas said the original Committee for Idaho’s High Desert paid the minimal state fees and regained the right to use its name after winning the magistrate’s ruling in April 1995.

U.S. Magistrate Larry Boyle prohibited the ranchers’ group from using the name, finding that the original committee had established its name with the public as a trademark and that the new committee had deliberately used the name to confuse the public.

The appeals court agreed, rejecting arguments that the committee’s name was generic and could not be protected by trademark laws. The committee had established a particular meaning for the public through its advocacy, educational work and sale of products, and gained legal protection for the name despite the lapse in registration, the court said.

While denying damages, the court said the officers of the ranchers’ committee could be held personally responsible for their opponents’ legal costs and attorneys’ fees.