SMOM vs. Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, The Ecumenical Order

Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta v. Fla. Priory of Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta, The Ecumenical Order, 816 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (S.D. Fla. 2011)

The Religious Order Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (SMOM) filed suit against another religious order, the Florida Priory of Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jersusalem, Knights of Malta, The Ecumenical Order (the Florida Priory) for trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices. The Florida Priory counterclaimed for cancellation of several of SMOM’s trademark registrations. The court held a bench trial and found for the Florida Priory on all counts except as to SMOM’s unregistered trademark.

The court first discussed the history of the parties, dating back to the late eleventh century AD. The Court focussed on issues of U.S. Trademark Law, and rendered its opinion in favor of the Ecumenical Order and against SMOM accordingly. In the process of rendering its opinion, however, the Court had to examine SMOM's claim that The Ecumenical Order was guilty of false advertising by presenting itself as the original Order. In its Conclusions of Law, the Court characteristically decided that: "References by the Florida Priory (of the Ecumenical Order) to a shared history with SMOM are perfectly appropriate, as the organizations shared a history prior to 1798." (page 17). With this conclusion the Court unmistakably signaled that the two Orders share a history prior to the original Order's departure from Malta in 1798 AD. No other Order of Saint John has been found, in modern jurisprudence, to have an equivalent claim with SMOM to the original Order. The Court declined to act as an arbiter of religious issues. Instead, the court shifted focus to the history of SMOM’s trademark registrations. Although SMOM’s trademarks had received incontestable status, the Florida Priory argued that the registered marks were procured by fraud because SMOM failed to disclose to the USPTO the existence of the Florida Priory and other religious orders that were using the same or similar names and marks prior to and at the time SMOM completed its trademark applications.

The court analogized the case to a recent Supreme Court decision in Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 131 S. Ct. 2060 (2011), where the Supreme Court held that the appropriate standard to determine active inducement of patent infringement is “willful blindness.” As the Supreme Court explained, a “willfully blind defendant is one who takes deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of wrongdoing and who can almost be said to have actually known the critical facts.” 131 S. Ct. at 2070-71. The court found that the willful blindness standard also applies to trademark cases.

Here, the court was persuaded that SMOM purposefully hired an attorney to prosecute their trademarks who had no knowledge of the existence of other religious orders with similar names and origins to SMOM in order skirt the requirement that it disclose any other organizations known to be using similar marks. The court cancelled several of SMOM’s registrations and found for the Florida Priory on all other counts, leaving to the USPTO the question of the validity of SMOM’s unregistered trademark.

Source: Kilpatrick Townsend attorneys at law

Order of Malta Medal for A.A. Ritter von Lutter and R.A.U. Freiherr von Quast-Juchter

In recognition and honour of special contributions, the Sovereign Military Hospital Order of Malta (SMOM), within the framework of Malteser International, bestowed upon A.A. Ritter von Lutter and R.A.U. Freiherr von Quast-Juchter, the Malteser International Medal of Commitment. This medal is seldomly awarded.

THE 79TH GRAND MASTER OF THE ORDER OF MALTA

Rome, 11 March 2008

Fra' Matthew Festing, 58, an Englishman, becomes the 79th Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, elected this morning by the Council Complete of State (the Order’s electoral body). In accepting the role, the new Grand Master swore his Oath before the Cardinal Patronus of the Order, Cardinal Pio Laghi, and the electoral body. He succeeds Fra’ Andrew Bertie, 78th Grand Master (1988-2008), who died on 7 February.

The new Grand Master affirms his resolve to continue the great work carried out by his predecessor. Fra’ Matthew comes with a wide range of experience in Order affairs. He has been the Grand Prior of England since the Priory’s re-establishment in 1993, restored after an abeyance of 450 years. In this capacity, he has led missions of humanitarian aid to Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia after the recent disturbances in those countries, and with a large delegation from Britain he attends the Order’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes with handicapped pilgrims.

Educated at Ampleforth and St.John’s College Cambridge, where he read history, Fra' Matthew, an art expert, has for most of his professional life worked at an international art auction house. As a child he lived in Egypt and Singapore, where his father, Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, had earlier postings. His mother was a member of the recusant Riddells of Swinburne Castle who suffered for their faith in penal times. He is also descended from Sir Adrian Fortescue, a knight of Malta, who was martyred in 1539.

Fra' Matthew served in the Grenadier Guards and holds the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He was appointed OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) by the Queen and has served as her Deputy Lieutenant in the county of Northumberland for a number of years.

In 1977 Fra' Matthew became a member of the Order of Malta, taking solemn religious vows in 1991.

As well as his passion for the decorative arts and for history, for which his encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the Order is legendary, as is his very British sense of humour, Fra' Matthew spends any free time possible in his beloved Northumberland countryside.

Source: SMOM

Allegations against Guy Stair Sainty

Should there be an doubt in anyone’s mind I wish to state the following in rebuttal of the defamatory allegations made against me on this web site, on alt.talk.royalty and in various emails. I have singled out the most invidious accusations because I do not want there to be any question that silence on my part means that there is any truth in the allegations made against me.

I have been married twice; my first marriage was annulled following a civil divorce. I remarried in a Catholic ceremony and remain married to the same person. The suggestion I have been married three times is false.

I have never been involved in any way in the “theft” of any stationary of the SMOM. I wrote a letter in 1972 on the stationary of an agency of which I was then secretary of the British Association of the SMOM, which suggested the Constantinian succession dispute could be solved after the death of the late D. Achille Di Lorenzo. As this was not within my responsibilities as officer of this agency, and as Sig. Di Lorenzo was annoyed and was a Grand Cross of the SMOM, I was asked to resign my post, which I did. I exceeded my responsibilities and recognized that I was wrong to have done so. The allegations regarding this incident by snake charmer and his aliases are completely false, however.

I was given the false Order of St George of Carinthia by a Sig. Pellicioni di Poli when I was aged 19; as soon as I found out that this was a self-styled Order I wrote to Sig. Pellicioni and resigned. I met Pellicioni just once and never saw him again. The allegations concerning a purported friendship with this gentleman are completely false. This experience inspired my ubsequent campaign against similar self-styled Orders.

I did not place any advertisement offering false titles or memberships in self-styled Orders in any journal or other medium at any time; the advertisement put in the International Herald Tribune in my name by a third party hoping to discredit me used an address that was almost 20 years out of date. The suggestion that I did so is completely false.

For more than a dozen years I have been a member of the False Orders Committee of the SMOM and Alliance Orders of St John, of which Peregrine Bertie, brother of the Grand Master, is the chairman. For my services on this committee I have received from the grand master the rank of grand officer of the Order of Merito Melitense. The Grand Master has written an introductory text for my book, and has supplied me with images of diplomas that he has received. Thus the allegations regarding my supposed bad relations with the SMOM may be seen to be completely false.

I remain a member of the False Orders Committee; I remain the Vice-Chancellor of the Priory in the US\ of the Order of St John; I continue to be a member of US professional art dealing associations as well as two major European professional organizations. I served for 7 years on the pro-bono Art Advisory Committee of the Commissioner of the US internal Revenue Service.

I was head of the International Patrons of the arts of the Vaticans Museums; I received the Order of St Gregory the Great with the consent of the late cardinal O’Connor and my name was published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. There is no truth whatsoever that I was not awarded this honour properly. I am a member of the French Associations des Chevaliers Pontificaux.

I was given the rank of commander of the Savoy Order of Sts Maurice and Lazarus several years before the formation of the American Association of Savoy Orders, of which I was one of the first members. Last year I was promoted to grand officer of this Order. The suggestion that I unsuccessfully sought membership of this order from the American Association of the Savoy Orders is thus completely false.

The arms that I use were granted by the College of Arms to the descendants of my great-grandfather. These arms were subsequently matriculated in Scotland and subsequently confirmed for me in Spain. The Spanish confirmation included the mantle of a knight of St Januarius (not that of a Duke), and the coronet of an untitled noble (by virtue of my membership of the Constantinian Order in the rank of Justice). This coronet was subsequently granted to me and my descendants as a Crest Coronet by the College of Arms. The allegations regarding my arms are completely false. These Arms are matters of public record and these facts easily ascertained.

The author(s) of these posts, while pseudononymous, is certainly guilty of defamation and probably of criminal libel (see the definition at http://www.hamiltons-solicitors.co.uk/archive-docs/awkward-customers2.htm) I have employed a professional investigator to determine the origins of these posts and will be pursuing their author or authors by whatever legal means are available to me. I will also be taking action against the authors of various libellous statements about me published two years ago on this forum and elsewhere whose false and defamatory content have been repeated here by this poster, and for whose invention and dissemination two identified individuals on this forum were responsible. These individuals also promoted the despatch of a defamatory communication addressed to HRH the Duke of Gloucester.

If anyone has any further information regarding the posters, or any emails attacking me, I would be grateful if they would send them to me (I will preserve their anonymity if they request it.

I was given the names Guy Stair Sainty on my birth certificate and they are also included on my baptism certificate. My birth certificate is of course a matter of public record.

Guy Stair Sainty
http://www.groupsrv.com/hobby/about308628.html