Supreme Court delivers victory for Washington on trademark case

SmashMouth · 06-19-2017, 05:40 PM

The long and winding road regarding whether Washington will lose federal trademark protection for its name and logo isn’t officially over, but it essentially is.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving the name of a band (“The Slants”) that may be offensive to Asian-Americans that the guarantee of free speech under the First Amendment overcomes the government’s supposed ability to invalidate trademark rights on potentially offensive grounds. It doesn’t mean that “The Slants” or “Redskins” are or aren’t offensive; it means that the government can’t deny trademark protection based on arguments that a given term does or could offend.

The government argued in the current case and in the Washington case that the issuance of a trademark transforms the potentially offensive term into “government speech.” Justice Samuel Alito had this to say in explaining that federally-protected trademarks aren’t messages from Uncle Sam: “[I]f trademarks represent government speech, what does the Government have in mind when it advises Americans to ‘make.believe’ (Sony), ‘Think different’ (Apple), ‘Just do it’ (Nike), or ‘Have it your way’ (Burger King)? Was the Government warning about a coming disaster when it registered the mark ‘EndTime Ministries’?

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Yes the Redskins, that’s Redskins won a victory.

Unanimous decision, for the Redskins.

06-19-2017, 05:40 PM	#1
SmashMouth I donated, did you? Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Mandeville, LA Posts: 38,557 Blog Entries: 29	Supreme Court delivers victory for Washington on trademark case The long and winding road regarding whether Washington will lose federal trademark protection for its name and logo isn’t officially over, but it essentially is. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving the name of a band (“The Slants”) that may be offensive to Asian-Americans that the guarantee of free speech under the First Amendment overcomes the government’s supposed ability to invalidate trademark rights on potentially offensive grounds. It doesn’t mean that “The Slants” or “Redskins” are or aren’t offensive; it means that the government can’t deny trademark protection based on arguments that a given term does or could offend. The government argued in the current case and in the Washington case that the issuance of a trademark transforms the potentially offensive term into “government speech.” Justice Samuel Alito had this to say in explaining that federally-protected trademarks aren’t messages from Uncle Sam: “[I]f trademarks represent government speech, what does the Government have in mind when it advises Americans to ‘make.believe’ (Sony), ‘Think different’ (Apple), ‘Just do it’ (Nike), or ‘Have it your way’ (Burger King)? Was the Government warning about a coming disaster when it registered the mark ‘EndTime Ministries’? read more Yes the Redskins, that’s Redskins won a victory. Unanimous decision, for the Redskins.