10 October 2008
Boy Scouts of America©
Posted by admin under: policies .
One of the things I didn’t know when I first joined the Cub Scouts with my son back in 1997 was that it was a part of the Boy Scouts of America. It’s just the junior age bracket of Boy Scouts. Another thing I didn’t know was that Boy Scouts are a federally recognized group which has a charter granted by the federal Congress and gives it certain rights.
One of these rights is a copyright on the Boy Scouts symbols and terms including the word Scout as it relates to an organized youth group. I’ve read elsewhere that there were many “Scout” groups when the BSA was young and they were absorbed into BSA or were renamed so that the Boy Scouts could own the term.
Since then the Boy Scouts have had to defend their copyright when they feel the need and apparently they’ve found a reason. Bay City News and NBC 11 are reporting that the BSA is trying to block the use of one of their terms.
Lawyers for Boy Scouts of America squared off with a Mountain View father’s attorney in federal court in San Francisco Friday about whether the name “Youthscouts” can be used for a youth activities group.
Mountain View resident Gregory Wrenn founded Youthscouts in 2002 after his daughter Emma was asked to stop attending meetings of her twin brother’s Cub Scouts pack.
The Boy Scouts organization is seeking a summary judgment barring the use of the name Youthscouts. It claims the title violates its trademark right to the word “scouts” as well as a special charter granted by Congress in 1916 giving the Boy Scouts of America the use of those words.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White earlier this week issued a tentative ruling in favor of the Boy Scouts, but at the close of a hearing this morning did not make a final ruling and took the case under submission.
Emma is 15 now so she could just join a Venturing Crew which is part of the Boy Scouts of America program, but I have a feeling that her dad has gotten his group going and wants it to continue. There is no co-ed BSA group for kids under the age of 14. In my pack we don’t worry about siblings attending stuff. It’s all good as the saying goes. We even give them patches for events they attend (but they have to pay for them). If the girls want to earn ranks and wear uniforms and everything then they need to join Girl Scouts. If they’re that active they usually do and have a great time.
It sounds like the Boy Scouts will win this case and then Mr. Wrenn will have to change the name of his group to something without the word scout in it. Hm. Maybe Campfire Girls and Boys? No, that just sounds silly. 
If you want to check out the group because you just can’t stand having your kids in two different organizations go to http://www.youthscouts.org/.
Update: More information and statements from the ruling judge. Is it normal for a judge to issue moral opinions along with legal ones?
A federal judge offered sympathy but little encouragement Friday to a Bay Area man who faces a claim of trademark infringement from the Boy Scouts for founding the Youthscouts after his daughter was excluded from her twin brother’s troop outings.
What Gregory Wrenn and his daughter are trying to do is “very laudable,” promoting “different values, more of an open door, less discriminatory” than the Boy Scouts, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White told Wrenn’s lawyer at the close of a hearing in San Francisco.
The Wrenns “ran into this juggernaut that Congress has granted to the Boy Scouts, with good reason,” White said. “It’s unfortunate that the case came to this.”
…
Wrenn filed the current suit in 2003 after the Boy Scouts tried unsuccessfully to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to strip Youthscouts of its name. He argued in his suit that the word “scouts” is generic and can’t be tied up by a congressional charter.
The Boy Scouts countersued for trademark infringement, arguing that its efforts have given “scouts” – historically a military term – a special meaning that Wrenn is trying to use for his own purposes.
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3 Comments so far...
Walter Underwood Says:
10 October 2008 at 5:19 pm.
Maybe he should call it “Baden-Powell Youth”.
Gregory Wrenn might have saved himself a lot of bother by affiliating with the Baden-Powell Scouts and/or the World Federation of Independent Scouts. They support coed scouting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-Powell_Scouts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Federation_of_Independent_Scouts
I don’t see how the BSA can claim exclusive use of the word “Scouts” without suing the GSUSA. The fact that they haven’t contested that means that they allow the use. As I understand trademark law, it is “defend it or lose it”.
admin Says:
10 October 2008 at 5:33 pm.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s because the Girl Scouts are also chartered by Congress.
“The corporation has the exclusive right to use all emblems and badges, descriptive or designating marks, and words or phrases the corporation adopts, including the badge of the Girl Scouts, Incorporated, referred to in the Act of August 12, 1937 (ch. 590, 50 Stat. 623), and to authorize their use, during the life of the corporation, in connection with the manufacture, advertisement, and sale of equipment and merchandise. This section does not affect any vested rights.”
Ed Says:
3 November 2008 at 4:20 pm.
“I have a feeling that her dad has gotten his group going and wants it to continue.”
Youthscouts did not renew their corporate status some years ago.
http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2504695
Their web site makes no claim as to the number of youth or units, nor are there any photos of youth engaged in activities.
“I don’t see how the BSA can claim exclusive use of the word “Scouts” without suing the GSUSA.”
Actually, the BSA did sue the GSUSA in 1924 but dropped it; the GSUSA had support from Scouting founder Baden-Powell and First Lady Lou Henry Hoover who was also the national president of the GSUSA.
http://www.inquiry.net/adult/bsa_vs_gsusa.htm
Organizations can share trademarks, such as the use of the red cross symbol used by the American Red Cross and Johnson & Johnson.
“Since then the Boy Scouts have had to defend their copyright when they feel the need”
The BSA has defended their rights to their name and emblems from the beginning. In the early days, companies made all sorts of stuff including shoes, rifles and bicycles with the Boy Scout name on them. Trademark law was not universal as it is now, which is why the federal charter was so important.
“…were renamed so that the Boy Scouts could own the term.”
An early peer of the BSA was the American Boy Scouts, founded by William Randolph Hearst. The ABS is often held up as an organization suppressed by the BSA, but a different picture emerges when looking at newspaper reports of the day. The BSA did try to get the ABS to change their name due to confusion, but were not successful until after the charter was granted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Boy_Scouts
I think the big question is: can a new group be organized along the lines of Scouting without using the term Scouting. In my opinion, it would be much harder to organize a new group today due to a saturation of organized youth activities. Beyond Scouting, there are a vast variety of sports, academics and church youth groups to occupy today’s youth.
One of the more successful new groups are the American Heritage Girls. The AHG was formed in response to some of the GSUSA’s policies and now has over 6000 members. They use Scout methods and use the term Scouting in their lieterature, but do not use it in their name.
http://ahgonline.org
“…by affiliating with the Baden-Powell Scouts”
Looking at the USPTO, the Baden-Powell Scouts Association has not tried to register their name as a trademark, but there are only a very few units in the U.S. The BPSA is more widespread in Canada. Scouts Canada sued them over the use of Scouts in their name, so they are officially the BPSA Federation of Canada.
Ed
