Jones Day Talks: Women in IP—Reviewing a "Scandalous Matter" at the Supreme Court
Does the Lanham Act’s restriction on registration of trademarks that include an individual’s name without the consent of such individual violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, even when the mark expresses...more
The intersection of free speech and private business branding is once again in front of the Supreme Court of the United States. On June 5th, the Supreme Court decided to hear Vidal v. Elster, Case 22-704, an appeal from the...more
USPTO Director Kathi Vidal recently petitioned the Supreme Court to review a Federal Circuit decision in In re Elster. There, the Federal Circuit held the USPTO unconstitutionally applied Lanham Act Section 2(c) (15 U.S.C. §...more
At a Glance - Even though the Supreme Court has paved the way for brands to register trademarks that may be considered disparaging, immoral, or scandalous, brand owners are reversing themselves and voluntarily changing....more
The last year has seen urgent discussions concerning racism, discrimination, police violence, inequality, and social justice come to the forefront of life in the United States. Corporate America – and its brands – responded...more
In the past calendar year, we saw several significant decisions from the Supreme Court pertaining to trademarks. In Iancu v. Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. 2294, the Supreme Court took another step in dismantling the prohibitions on...more
Kilpatrick Townsend partner Ted Davis recently presented his “Annual Review of Key Trademark & Unfair Competition Opinions” at the firm’s 2019 Advanced Trademark Law Seminar in San Francisco. Key takeaways from the...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Mission Product Holdings v. Tempnology, LLC holds interesting implications for both trademark law and bankruptcy law. Also, in Iancu v. Brunetti, the Court confirmed that trademarks cannot...more
Love him or hate him, everyone agrees that NFL Quarterback Tom Brady is terrific, except the USPTO. Earlier this year, Mr. Brady’s company filed to register the trademark “Tom Terrific” for t-shirts and various other...more
On June 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Iancu v. Brunetti, struck down the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks. Justice Kagan wrote for the 6-3 majority, holding that the...more
In This Issue - A Looming AI War: Transparency v. IP Rights - As artificial intelligence systems become more prevalent in daily life, efforts to create a unifying set of AI principles have intensified. In the past few...more
What constitutes a “scandalous” trademark? The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been grappling with this question since the enactment of the 1905 Trademark Act, later codified in the 1946 Lanham...more
In a 6–3 opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a 2017 US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision holding the ban on registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks under the Lanham Act to be an...more
“FUCT.” You can pronounce it as four letters, one after the other. Or you can pronounce it like Justice Kagan as the “past participle form of a well-known word of profanity.” Either way, the word can be registered as a...more
Last week, on June 24, 2019, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Lanham Act’s “immoral or scandalous” bar to trademark registration constitutes viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and thus...more
In a decision that is likely to trigger a rush to register trademarks that may be seen as obscene, vulgar, or profane, the U.S. Supreme Court recently determined, in a 6-3 opinion authored by Justice Elena Kagan, that a...more
In permitting the registration of the “vulgar” term FUCT, the Supreme Court recently extended its 2016 ruling from Matal v. Tam, which allowed the registration of the trademark THE SLANTS for an Asian-American rock band...more
The road to permitting the registration of George Carlin's "seven dirty words" began in 2017, with the Supreme Court holding unconstitutional the Trademark Act's prohibition against registration of trademarks which are...more
On June 24, 2019, the United States Supreme Court, in Iancu v. Brunetti, reviewing the trademark application for “FUCT”, held that the Lanham’s Act’s provision, prohibiting the registration of “immoral[] or scandalous”...more
In our prior blog entries... we followed the course of Matal v. Tam, the case involving the mark “THE SLANTS.” In that case, the Supreme Court struck down a portion of Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), on...more
On Monday, the Supreme Court held that the ban on “immoral or scandalous” trademarks was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Court found that, as with the recently struck down ban on “disparaging” marks, the ban...more
The U.S. Supreme Court this week officially pulled the plug on the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the registration of trademarks that comprise “immoral” or “scandalous” matter on First Amendment grounds. The prohibition, found...more
Earlier this week the United States Supreme Court struck down a century-old provision in the Lanham Act that banned the registration of marks deemed “immoral” or “scandalous.” By a 6-3 vote, the Court found in Iancu v....more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18-302, finding that the Lanham Act prohibition against registration of scandalous or immoral trademarks violates the First Amendment of the U.S....more
It’s old news by now, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that the immoral and scandalous trademark ban set forth in Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act is unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it disfavors...more