Future of Redskins’ trademark tied to rock band’s court case.
FREE SPEECH BATTLE PLAYING OUT IN U. S. HAS WIDE IMPLICATIONS
The NFL’s Washington Redskins may not have a lot in common with an alternative rock band from Portland, Ore., called The Slants. Yet both the football team and the band are in the midst of a U.S. free speech battle over their constitutional rights to trademark their names.
Simon Tam, bass player and founder of the self- described “Chinatown Dance Band,” says his group’s name is an intentional allusion to the Asian heritage of its four members. Yet as far as the United States Patent and Trademark Office is concerned, the band’s name is a disparaging racial epithet. It says U. S. law prevents the office from registering such names.
On Wednesday, lawyers for the rock band — among them a Canadian originally from Richmond Hill, Ont., named Joel MacMull — will appear in the U. S. Supreme Court to argue that the band has a constitutional right to trademark its controversial name.
The Slants case has sweeping implications. Pro-Football Inc., the com- pany that owns the Washington Redskins football team, is intervening in The Slants’ U. S. Supreme Court battle, as have the six Native American plaintiffs who are fighting to have the U. S. PTO cancel the Redskins’ trademarks.
The PTO cancelled the Redskins’ trademark registrations in 2014 after the native plaintiffs sued. The NFL team’s case is currently under appeal, but that matter is being held in abeyance pending the outcome of The Slants’ case before the U. S. Supreme Court.
“As we go, so shall the Redskins,” MacMull said.
At issue is a U. S. statute known as the Lanham Act. The legislation says the U. S. PTO must refuse to register trademarks that “may disparage ... persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.”
Lower U. S. courts have struck down the disparagement clause, ruling that it violates the free speech guarantee in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
That would be mean. And it’s ancient history. Anyway, destroying shareholder value doesn’t immediately disqualify anyone from market analysis.
Yes, let’s leave all that aside, because there is no doubting that Trump, even before he’s become president, has been very good for the stock market. But if the events of the past week are any indication, it’s going to be a very bumpy ride once he’s el presidente.
Amid all the debate over what his policies will really do — and to my mind, markets are betting too heavily on the upside — there’s the primary question of whether he will be able to focus long enough to actually implement them. You gotta wonder.
His promises on the campaign trail hit an earnings growth trifecta: trilliondollar infrastructure spending ( super for industrials), tax cuts ( best thing for the bottom line ever!) and the cutting of red tape ( very, very good for banks — many people said so). All music to investors’ ears.
Yet Trump’s platform, es- pecially when it came to the U. S. economy, was always pretty vague. Markets probably expected it to become clear as he neared the Oval Office. But during the interregnum, they really haven’t got much more out of him.
So when, at long last, he held his first news conference in six months, expectations were high. Maybe he’d finally put some meat on the bone.
Of course, by the time the event came around last Wednesday, Trump had been sideswiped by the release of an unsubstantiated dossier on his alleged ties with, and (um) salacious behaviour in, Russia. Still, vice-president-elect Mike Pence, in introducing his running mate, promised Trump would “get back to real news” and “talk about issues that are of paramount importance to the American people today.” And … not so much. Trump proceeded to bash the press, insult a political rival ( or two) and make a half- hearted attempt to justify his solution to avoid conflicts of interest — signing over control of his corporate empire to his sons. ( To prove it, he pointed to a stack of legal-looking papers, most of which appeared to be blank.)
Did he mention deregu- lation? Did the phrase “red tape” ( as in cutting it) pass his lips? No.
And if he was going to expand on that trillion- dollar infrastructure thing, he never got round to it.
He also suggested Mexico would pay for the infamous wall through a tax of some kind. No details there.
More or l ess, he got through the news conference with bombast, misdirection and improvisation. Maybe that kind of behaviour got him to victory in the election — but he doesn’t need to get elected any more. He needs to govern.
Trump last week had a huge opportunity to lay out a clear path for his administration, and damn the torpedoes. Instead, he not only responded to the torpedoes — he hopped on one and rode it.
Now, having a short attention span and delicate ego need not be fatal, even for a president. But compounding Trump’s distractibility is the likelihood that no president in post- Nixon history will have so many distractions, especially so early in his tenure. The knives are out. Do you think the mainstream media are going to let the Russian hotel story die? No way. There will be more like it, too.
The prelude is not past; it’s the future, at least for another four years. If government by distraction remains the rule, Trump will accomplish nothing.