IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK NEWS: When does a re-registration count as a registration? Cybersquatting dispute may go to the Supreme Court, (Aug 22, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

An exercise equipment maker wants the Court to resolve a circuit split over the issue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit got it wrong when it held that federal cybersquatting legislation regulated only the initial registration of domain names and not their subsequent re-registration by different owners, a new petition for certiorari asserts. The petition, filed on behalf of a prominent maker of exercise equipment, asks the Supreme Court to resolve a split among courts of appeals and to reverse a ruling that allegedly “puts swaths of egregious cybersquatting behavior” out of the law’s reach (JFXD TRX ACQ LLC v. Ming, Dkt. No. 25-188 (U.S. filed May 16, 2025)).

The case was brought by the company that owns TRX, the well-known brand of exercise training equipment. Former Navy Seal Randy Hetrick founded the company in 2004 but sold a controlling interest in the company in 2019. Three years later, after the company went under, Hetrick teamed up with a private equity firm to purchase it out of bankruptcy. But there was a problem: in the intervening time, an Arizona resident named Loo Yze Ming had bought up the domain name trx.com and was marketing it to the highest bidder.

The new owners of TRX, miffed, filed a suit against Ming in a federal court in Virginia. The complaint asserted that Ming bought the domain name in bad faith, in violation of the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), in order to profit from the exercise equipment company’s good name. The company demanded statutory damages of $100,000 and an order transferring the trx.com domain name to the company.

With personal jurisdiction over Ming lacking in Virginia, the lawsuit was transferred to the District of Arizona. But this created another problem for the exercise company. The ACPA bars the bad faith “registration” of domain names. But under Ninth Circuit authority, only the initial registration of domain names is subject to the cybersquatting law. And because Ming was not the first to register the name—a now-defunct technology company got to it first, in 1999—he could not be touched by the law. The district court, bound by circuit precedent, dismissed the claim (and awarded attorney fees to boot), and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

The exercise company’s petition rests on two arguments. First, company argues, Ninth Circuit precedent was out of line with the decisions of other courts. In the Third, Fourth, or Eleventh Circuits, the petition argues, the claim would be viable. “Those courts of appeals have each rejected the Ninth Circuit’s analysis,” the petition argues, “and have held that the ACPA treats re-registrations of domain names no differently from initial registrations.” This circuit split, the petition asserts, “will persist unless resolved by this Court—leading to uncertainty nationwide over the scope of digital trademark rights.”

The Ninth Circuit’s “outlier” position, the petition asserts, is also simply wrong. The statutory question, the petition asserts, is whether such “re-registration” is also “registration.” Dictionary definitions and common sense, the petition argues, say that it is. “That a ‘re-registration’ is a ‘registration’ all the same is consistent with how ‘re-XX’ words work throughout the English language,” the petition argues. “A ‘remarriage’ is no less a ‘marriage’ just because one of the participants was previously married. Similarly, one who ‘repaints’ his house also ‘paints’ it; that it is a ‘repaint’ job simply reflects that the house was once before painted but has little bearing on whether the task at hand is ‘painting.’” The Ninth Circuit’s decision, therefore, “is not just on an island—it is wrong,” the petition claims.

The question presented by the petition is, “Whether registration of a domain name for purposes of the ACPA includes re-registrations, or if it is instead limited to the initial registration.”

The Case is Dkt. No. 25-188.

Attorneys: Adam G. Unikowsky (Jenner & Block LLP) for JFXD TRX ACQ LLC.

Companies: JFXD TRX ACQ LLC

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