A local realtor, er, real estate agent, brought this Trademark Trial and Appeal Board action against the National Association of Realtors to cancel its registration for REALTOR as generic. NAR prevailed but the issue in chief wasn’t tried. Plaintiff argued that REALTOR was already a generic term when she had been a member of NAR up unitl 1996, and not that it had become generic after she left NAR. Thus, under the doctrine of licensee estoppel, she was barred from challenging the rights of her licensor.
Someone who has never been a member of NAR would not have that issue to contend with.