Prohibiting federal registration for "disparaging"
marks constitutes viewpoint discrimination and is unconstitutional
says the Supreme Court.
In deciding the case of Matal v. Tam (formerly known as
Lee v. Tam), the Court dedicated much of its opinion to
the question of whether trademarks−more
specifically−federal trademark registration constituted
government speech. Not surprisingly, that question was answered in
the negative. In particular, the Court determined that the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office improperly denied trademark
registration for the name of the band "The Slants," on
the basis that "slants" is a derogatory term for persons
of Asian descent. The Court expressed serious concern with the
government speech argument noting that, "If private speech
could be passed off as government speech by simply affixing a
government seal of approval, government could silence or muffle the
expression of disfavored viewpoints." The Court then went on
to quickly dispose
