The Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Whether the First Amendment Protects Offensive Trademarks, Again

The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari (in Iancu v. Brunetti) to decide whether the statutory prohibition on federal registration of a so-called “scandalous” trademark — in this instance, “FUCT” — conflicts with the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.  At first glance, the Court’s decision in Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017), in which the Court unanimously held that the prohibition on registering “disparaging” trademarks violated the First Amendment, dictates the same result in Brunetti.  However, Brunetti potentially differs from  Tam on the facts, plus, the Court could not agree on a rationale for its decision in Tam.  While it appears that most observers believe that the Court will rule in the trademark owner’s favor in Brunetti, there are various possible routes that the Court could take to reach that result. Trademark registration is voluntary, and unregistered marks can be…

Read more detail on Recent Advertising Law posts –

This entry was posted in Advertising Law and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply