Interesting development yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/sports...uling.html
A federal appellate court (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) just held that the portion of the Lanham Act that prohibits "disparaging" or "offensive" trademarks violates the First Amendment's protection of free speech and is therefore invalid.
The case didn't involve the revocation of the Redskin's trademark. Instead, it involved an Asian-American band called the "Slants." After the group was denied the ability to register its band name as a trademark because the Patent and Trademark Office deemed it offensive under the Lanham Act, the federal court struck the law down. In so doing, the court noted that “[i]t is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government may not penalize private speech merely because it disapproves of the message it conveys.”
But the Slants case involves the same law that was used to strip the Redskins of its trademark protection. If the court reviewing the Redskin's trademark case makes a similar conclusion that government lawyers using the Lanham Act to deny trademark protection (because they believe "Redskins" is "offensive" or "disparaging" to Native Americans) unduly trammels constitutionally protected speech, the Redskins win by a large margin.
I don't know whether that will actually happen, but it's encouraging to see that there are still a handful of judges who are willing to take a stand against the PC culture in favor of constitutional values.
A federal appellate court (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) just held that the portion of the Lanham Act that prohibits "disparaging" or "offensive" trademarks violates the First Amendment's protection of free speech and is therefore invalid.
The case didn't involve the revocation of the Redskin's trademark. Instead, it involved an Asian-American band called the "Slants." After the group was denied the ability to register its band name as a trademark because the Patent and Trademark Office deemed it offensive under the Lanham Act, the federal court struck the law down. In so doing, the court noted that “[i]t is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government may not penalize private speech merely because it disapproves of the message it conveys.”
But the Slants case involves the same law that was used to strip the Redskins of its trademark protection. If the court reviewing the Redskin's trademark case makes a similar conclusion that government lawyers using the Lanham Act to deny trademark protection (because they believe "Redskins" is "offensive" or "disparaging" to Native Americans) unduly trammels constitutionally protected speech, the Redskins win by a large margin.
I don't know whether that will actually happen, but it's encouraging to see that there are still a handful of judges who are willing to take a stand against the PC culture in favor of constitutional values.