U.S. Supreme Court ruling leads to offensive trademark requests
NEW YORK, (Reuters) - A small group of companies and individuals are looking to register racially charged words and symbols for their products, including the N-word and a swastika, based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision on trademarks last month.
At least nine such applications have been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) since the unanimous June 19 ruling throwing out a federal law prohibiting disparaging trademarks. All are pending.
In the past, the agency generally rejected similar filings because they included material that denigrated an identifiable group. But the court said the law violated free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.
If the applicants follow through, such products as energy drinks, sweatshirts and fragrances could be branded with racial slurs. Federally registered trademarks, though not required to sell goods in the marketplace, can protect businesses against unauthorized uses of their brands.
Attorney David Bell, a trademark expert with the law firm Haynes and Boone, said the filings could be the tip of the iceberg if more people seek trademarks on offensive and vulgar terms.
“We’re now opening the door, chipping away at what’s acceptable under cultural norms,” he said. “I think it could be a slippery slope, where you get more people and companies thinking, ‘This is okay.’” steps at a meeting on Wednesday in Brussels if Trump signs the bill into law, and is willing to consider retaliation, according to an EU official.
After warning against unilateral U.S. sanctions at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Commission President JeanClaude Juncker is concerned Congress’ legislation could hit European companies upgrading pipelines in Russia that feed into Ukraine’s gas transit system.
The measures could also target European companies doing legitimate business with Russia in rail transport, financial, shipping and mining, the EU official said.
Any significant EU retaliation would need the support, however, of the EU’s 28 governments and would face resistance from members of the bloc, such as Britain and Hungary, that are reluctant to upset the Trump administration.