The part you cite, more extensively, mentions the withholding of a trademark if it “consists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute”. Well, okay.
The Lanham Act is from 1946. The Redskins have been called the Redskins since 1932. And nobody saw it fit to junk the trademark until today?
I don’t want to jump to the Redskins’ defence. I don’t like football, and I don’t even know the rules. And yeah, I don’t like the team’s name either. But now the Patent Office uses a law based on some sort of outdated aw-shucks Norman Rockwellist vision of America the Beautiful and the Great where Institutions Cannot Be Attacked, to refuse a trademark which it accepted for decades. From the ruling: “Whether a mark comprises immoral and scandalous matter is to be ascertained in the context of contemporary attitudes, and the relevant viewpoint is not necessarily that of a majority of the general public, but of a ‘substantial composite.” In other words, as soon as someone can whip up enough of a controversy in the media to make it look as though there is a “substantial composite” of the population – in other words, to make the Patent Office look like a bunch of callous racists for not taking action – you can lose your trademark. Do they not realize that this will only benefit the shrillest and best organized protest groups?
Who’s next? The Atlanta Braves? The Cleveland Indians? The Chicago Blackhawks?
Just to clarify this, courts have routinely upheld that items which would fall under the restricted category would not have the protection of trademark. All that needs to be determined is if indeed something falls under that restricted classification. This is not a finding of guilt, nor is it an issue of liability. It simply inhibits an organization’s means to make money upon the mark from this point onward.
Maybe the New York Yankees? As someone from the North who now lives in the South, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve disparagingly been called a Yank or Yankee. I’m really tired of it, and seeing the NY Yankee name and symbol everywhere come baseball season is very upsetting. And this has nothing to do with me being a Red Sox fan.
Try picking up a history book or two and educating yourself over the origins of the term redskin. Or, better yet, read some of the actual primary sources from the colonial and early american republic period. I know most that want to make the political correctness argument can’t be bothered, but hope springs eternal.
Truly the plight of the white New Englander in deepest Mississippi is worthy of protection on the same level as a group of peoples who faced institutional genocide and whose communities barely exist today as a result of official US policy.
My understanding of the situation (with only brief skimming of the news and such) is that the prior invalidation was overturned due to the age of the petitioners. Essentially they had waited too long to file their challenge. This new challenge is by folk who are much younger, so that reasoning may not apply on appeal.
I clearly said I didn’t like the name. The team owners should have been persuaded to change it by feedback in the press. I don’t like to see something like the Patent Office dictating what constitutes offensive or inoffensive wording according to the sensitivities of a bill passed before the heyday of Senator McCarthy. (Speaking of which, didn’t the Cincinnati Reds go about calling themselves the Redlegs for a while just to be on the safe side of public opinion? What was the US Patent Office doing then, I wonder, to preserve wholesome Americans from the pervasive ideological menace of the Communist horde?)
The patent office must apply its governing legislation, which requires it to consider whether a trademark is offensive. Its legislation was duly passed by a democratically government, and such a democratically elected government is entitled to place limits on what kinds of trademarks do and do not enjoy protection. Frankly I don’t know why it would concern you in the slightest, since 1. you are not American; 2. you do not appear to be a sports fan; and 3. Canada has a similar prohibit on “scandalous, obscene or immoral” trademarks (Trade-marks Act s. 9(1)(j)).
By this point, it seems you are willfully ignoring the facts at hand or are unable to grasp them. The USPTO doesn’t “dictate” what makes a mark offensive or inoffensive. That determination is made by a showing that “a substantial composite of the referenced group, although not necessarily a majority, would find the proposed mark, as used on or in connection with the relevant goods or services, to be disparaging in the context of contemporary attitudes.”
Here, the referenced group are Native Americans, in that they are the group referenced by the term “Redskin.” The question is not whether the USPTO thinks a term is offensive, but whether the group affected by the use of that term would have considered the term disparaging at the time the mark was registered.
Now you are just shifting the argument and moving the goal posts. This is not about political correctness, free speech, McCarthy, or Communism - that is the dust cloud kicked up on the internet and talk radio to obscure the larger issue. Whether you like or dislike the term is irrelevant.
Long before this current round of debate over the team name, historians, using primary sources as facts and evidence, outlined how this term was employed as a pejorative by Euro-Americans. Period. The real question is not about the actions of the Patent Office, but why it has taken so long for the federal government and the NFL to recognize and acknowledge basic history. Insert the usual arguments about money and power here. That being said, there are certainly native folks who would like to see some of the energy focused in this situation carried forward and directed towards pressing needs, but that is a different conversation for another day.
