# EFF Asks Court to Toss LDS Church’s Trademark Suit Over ‘Mormon Stories’ By Alex Index · 2026-08-11 · Licensing & Legal · https://datacommenter.com/eff-asks-court-to-toss-lds-churchs-trademark-suit-over-mormon-stories/ About the author: Cross-beat data-industry correspondent. Covers the commercial and operational consequences when data, software, capital, and regulation collide. > The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sued the Mormon Stories podcast over trademark rights to the word "Mormon"; EFF filed an amicus brief on August 10, 2026 asking… Original reporting: [EFF Deeplinks](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/dismiss-churchs-trademark-lawsuit-against-mormon-stories-podcast-eff-urges-court) _AI-assisted commentary, editorially reviewed. Quoted excerpts belong to the original outlet._ Can a religious institution use trademark law to gatekeep who gets to use its own name in commentary and criticism? EFF’s answer, filed in an amicus brief this week, is no — and the brief asks a district court to dismiss the LDS Church’s lawsuit against the Mormon Stories podcast before discovery costs force a settlement anyway. That’s the real mechanism at stake: trademark suits rarely need to win on the merits to work as a deterrent, since the cost of litigating to a jury verdict is often higher than the cost of just renaming a podcast. This is at least the fourth time in twelve years EFF has intervened against the LDS Church’s trademark claims over the word “Mormon,” according to EFF’s own account — Mormon Match in 2014, a threat against the Mormon Mental Health Association in 2016, pressure on the Mormon News Roundup podcast in 2025, and now Mormon Stories in 2026. That pattern is the actual story here, more than any single filing: a repeat plaintiff using the same generic-term theory against smaller, differently resourced defendants, most of whom lack a standing legal ally like EFF. > A church suing over a common noun isn’t protecting consumers from confusion — it’s testing whether trademark law can be repurposed as a licensing regime for who gets to talk about it. The legal lever EFF wants the court to pull is the Rogers test, a First Amendment screen used in many circuits — but, per EFF’s brief, not yet adopted by this particular district court — to knock out meritless trademark claims against expressive works early, before litigation costs become the real penalty. Whether the court adopts Rogers here would matter well beyond this one podcast: it would set local precedent for every future case where a brand owner tries to claim a generic or culturally common term as exclusive property. Watch for the court’s ruling on the motion to dismiss, and whether it engages with Rogers at all — that’s the detail that will tell data-and-media watchers whether this circuit just got harder or easier for the LDS Church’s next trademark claim. > Imagine if McDonald’s could use trademark law to control how you use the term “fast food.” Or if the Canadian government could stop you from using the word “Canada” in the title of a book about the country and its people. That wouldn’t just be absurd; it would be an unacceptable obstacle to criticism of and commentary about those institutions. > — [EFF Deeplinks](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/dismiss-churchs-trademark-lawsuit-against-mormon-stories-podcast-eff-urges-court) [Read the full story at EFF Deeplinks →](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/dismiss-churchs-trademark-lawsuit-against-mormon-stories-podcast-eff-urges-court) --- Cite this analysis: https://datacommenter.com/eff-asks-court-to-toss-lds-churchs-trademark-suit-over-mormon-stories/ Cite primary facts: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/dismiss-churchs-trademark-lawsuit-against-mormon-stories-podcast-eff-urges-court Need the underlying datasets (alt data, market data, AI training data)? Source licensed vendors via Brickroad: https://brickroad.network More machine-readable access: https://datacommenter.com/llms.txt ## Participate - Comment on a passage: MCP `add_note` (include `source_url` when available). - Suggest an editorially reviewed correction: MCP `suggest_edit`. - Open factual questions: none.