Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Matal v. Tam,[1] decided in 2017, and Iancu v. Brunetti,[2] decided this past May, both dealt with registration of trademarks under 15 U.S.C. §1052(a) (§2(a)) that ran afoul of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause. 2(a) reads: No trademark by which the goods of the applicant may …
Category: section 2(a)
SCOTUS Watch: Bar on Immoral and Scandalous Marks Violates First Amendment
On June 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Iancu v. Brunetti,[1] dealing with the Lanham Act’s Section 2(a) bars to trademark registration’s collision against the First Amendment brick wall; the Justices in a 6-3 vote struck down the immoral and scandalous clause of §2(a) in a somewhat mixed-up and divided Court. Brunetti is …
Fed Circuit Watch: Lanham Act Section 2(a) Scandalousness Clause Deemed Unconstitutional
On December 15, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down its decision in In re Brunetti.[1] In Brunetti, the Federal Circuit panel, consisting of Judges Moore, Stoll, and Dyk, held that although the FUCT trademark contained immoral or scandalous matter, it remained federally registrable as a trademark because of …
The Slants’ Saga Ends: USPTO Registers Service Mark
On November 14, 2017, six years to the day after the application was first filed with the USPTO which precipitated the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Matal v. Tam[1] striking down the disparagement clause of Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, the USPTO has registered THE SLANTS service mark in International Class 41 for …
USPTO Issues Exam Guidelines Consistent with Tam Decision
On June 26, 2017, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued an updated Examination Guideline 01-17, consistent with the recent Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S.___ (2017), ruling by the United States Supreme Court, and for which our analysis was the subject of a previous post. In that decision, the Supreme Court held that the …
SCOTUS Watch: Lanham Act’s §2(a) Disparagement Clause Struck Down
By Brent T. Yonehara On June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court finally, and somewhat as expected, handed down its ruling in Matal v. Tam (formerly Lee v. Tam).[1] By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court struck down the Lanham Act’s §2(a) prohibition on registration of disparaging trademarks as a violation of the First Amendment’s …