A dispute over who owns the rights to the name of a long-standing credit union real estate institution appears to pit a mortgage consultant within one of the institution's chapters against the leading provider of private mortgage insurance for credit unions.

At issue is who owns the trademark to the word CUREN, an acronym for the Credit Union Real Estate Network, an informal organization of credit union real estate professionals that predates the founding of the American Credit Union Mortgage Association. ACUMA is the current trade group for mortgage issuing credit unions.

Mike Martella, a mortgage consultant with 267,000 member Patelco Credit Union, inadvertently launched the dispute when he revived a trademark application he had first made in 2004 to trademark the name CUREN. According to records with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, Patella made his application in September 2004. Martella said he abandoned the trademark in 2005 because he ran out of resources. He said he revived it in August 2011 out of concern that a for-profit firm might do so.