Brandmarking: Volume 5, Number 2

Supreme Court Review of "Disparagement" Trademark Case May – or May Not – Implicate First Amendment, Impact Washington Redskins Case

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear one of two high-profile cases that involve the federal Trademark Act's ban on registration of "disparaging" trademarks.

The case is called In re Tam, and involves a music group comprised of Japanese American men who named themselves "The Slants." The group applied to register their name as a trademark and the Trademark Office refused, finding that the term was disparaging to persons of Japanese extraction. The refusal was based on Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act, which provides for denial of registration to material that