{"id":1599,"date":"2015-12-23T13:28:50","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T20:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/?p=1599"},"modified":"2015-12-23T13:28:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T20:28:50","slug":"rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/","title":{"rendered":"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"LTR\" align=\"LEFT\">It&#8217;s usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a provision of the U.S. trademark statute (known as the Lanham Act) is unconstitutional. Specifically, the court struck down the section of the Act that allows the Trademark Office to deny registration to a trademark that it considers to be &#8220;scandalous, immoral, or disparaging.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\" align=\"LEFT\">Nine of the twelve judges on the court signed an opinion which begins about as strongly as an opinion can:<\/p>\n<p><dir><\/dir><dir><\/p>\n<p dir=\"LTR\" align=\"LEFT\">&#8220;Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act bars the Patent and Trademark Office (&#8220;PTO&#8221;) from registering scandalous, immoral, or disparaging marks. 15 U.S.C. \u00a7 1052(a). The government enacted this law\u2014and defends it today\u2014 because it disapproves of the messages conveyed by disparaging marks. It 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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><\/dir><\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a provision of the U.S. trademark statute (known as the Lanham Act) is unconstitutional. Specifically, the court struck down the section [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks &#8212; Idaho Law Blog &#8212; December 23, 2015<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It&#039;s usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States &#8212; December 23, 2015\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks &#8212; Idaho Law Blog &#8212; December 23, 2015\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"It&#039;s usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States &#8212; December 23, 2015\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Racine Olson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks &#8212; Idaho Law Blog &#8212; December 23, 2015","description":"It's usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States &#8212; December 23, 2015","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks &#8212; Idaho Law Blog &#8212; December 23, 2015","twitter_description":"It's usually interesting when a trademark case makes the news, and the court decision released on Tuesday this week is no exception.\u3000 The United States &#8212; December 23, 2015","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Racine Olson","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/"},"author":{"name":"Racine Olson","@id":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/aa8aa04699b3ee65fb6e3d91aaa6b2bd"},"headline":"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks","datePublished":"2015-12-23T20:28:50+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/"},"wordCount":651,"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/","url":"https:\/\/www.racinelaw.net\/blog\/rock-bands-football-teams-disparaging-trademarks\/","name":"Of rock bands, football teams, and disparaging trademarks &#8212; 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