THE HISTORY OF THE ‘CFP PRACTITIONER’ CONTROVERSY

Article Dated: 2/2002

By Paul M. League, CFP^®

www.IAQFP.org / info@IAQFP.org

For those of you who do not know the history on the original controversy surrounding what was originally a CFP Board pended Trademark – “CFP PRACTITIONER” – let me fill you in a bit since I uncovered it and am credited with the in part positive outcome that resulted; namely, the CFP Board’s withdrawal of it as a pended, and competing Trademark, to CFP^®.

First and foremost, upon my original discovery of this “term” [as announced in a letter to fellow Certificants on 4/19/2000, and posted at the Financial Planning Interactive web site under “Industry Buzz” (http://www.financial-planning.com) and titled: “CFP Board Violates Licensees Trust – Promotes Yet Another CFP^®-Lite = CFP PRACTITIONER”], it became clear that what we were really dealing with was a filed & pended new, and competing, Trademark to CFP^®, and not just a mere “term” or benign use of some descriptive words.

The CFP Board, however, kept claiming in writing and open forums that it was “merely” a descriptive “term”. Some months later, as the controversy gained exposure & momentum of its own, the CFP Board did a 180 degree turn around and announced in their “CFP Board Report” Newsletter of Sept/Oct 2000, that they would not renew the pended Trademark filing of ‘CFP PRACTITIONER’. The stated reason they gave for pending it in the first place was to “preserve their options should the term have become widely used in the future”. Of course, it had changed during “handling” of it from a “mere term” to a pended Trademark, a significant modification from its origins with the former IAFP’s “Registry of Financial Planning Practitioners”. The CFP Board persistently told Certificants is was “just a descriptive term”, but neglected to add that it was really much, much more; namely, a filed, and pended, new and competing Trademark.

In addition to the above noted announcement they later also stopped using it as a Trademark in their publications and other media, reduced the letter “P” in Practitioner to a lower case “p”, and in this way and others dramatically altered the way in which they used the “term”. They added that the word “practitioner” would only be used henceforth as only one of many currently used generic “noun modifiers” to modify the CFP^® mark (i.e. like “Certificant”, and like designee used to be but they modified to “CFP Board designee” due to designees not being yet “certified”). Following their announcement, and following, I cautioned Certificants from accepting their announcement at face value; however, many became complacent anyway, assuming that all was rectified and well, despite my cautions and the obvious warnings contained in the history that proceeded the controversy.

Clearly there had been a significant controversy, a meaningful part of which centered on the fact that the CFP Board had withheld openly & clearly informing Certificants (so called “licensees and designees” at that time), and for more than over 4 years, that what they were saying was a “mere descriptive term” was in actuality a filed, pended, new and competing Trademark to CFP^® (since 1996). Further, and more alarming, they had authorized Certificants, in their licensing renewal forms, all throughout that 4 year period and beyond while I was still exposing the controversy, to openly use the competing certification/designation mark, or so called “term”. In doing this they thereby had Certificants unknowingly assisting them in the marketing and the spreading of that competing Trademark. Licensees, therefore, were literally blindly promoting and building a new mark in competition to the one mark (CFP^®) that they thought they had been both actively supporting & promoting over the last 30 years…that new mark was ‘CFP PRACTITIONER’. This was the heart of that controversy.

As pointed out in the linked article that follows, their present usage of the “term”, ‘CFP^® practitioner’, remains dangerously flawed (click HERE), and calls for the active concern of all CFP^® Certificants.