Supreme Court to consider law banning disparaging trademarks
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to decide the constitutionality of a law that bans registration of disparaging trademarks.
The court will decide the issue in the case of a “Chinatown dance rock” band that wants to trademark its name, the Slants, SCOTUSblog reports. The case page is here. The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg News and Politico have stories.
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down the ban on disparaging trademarks in December, ruling that the ban amounted to viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment.
Band front man Simon Shiao Tam has said he wanted to trademark the name because he wanted to “own” the stereotype it represents.
The ban on trademarks, which is part of the Lanham Trademark Act, requires rejection of trademarks that “may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”
The decision in Lee v. Tam could have an impact in a pending appeal by Washington’s NFL team, which lost its trademark because its name is disparaging to Native Americans. The team has asked the Supreme Court to hear its case, though it hasn’t yet been heard by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
