Scandalous Trademark Applications On Hold

Trademarks consisting of or comprising “scandalous or immoral” matter still won’t be granted federal registration “in the name of the United States of America,” at least for the time being.

Immediately on the heels of the International Trademark Association’s 140th Annual Meeting in Seattle, and our well-received panel discussion concerning Trademarks and Free Speech, the United States Patent and Trademark Office announced it will continue to hold on to and suspend trademark applications containing scandalous or immoral matter, until further notice.

The Trademark Office is waiting to see whether the federal government will appeal the Brunetti decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. What I would give to be a fly on the wall in those discussions.

As you may recall, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), ruled last December that the “scandalous or immoral” statutory bar to registration violates a trademark applicant’s Free Speech, overturning a part of trademark law in existence since 1905.

Since the federal government’s request that the entire CAFC reconsider the three-member panel decision Brunetti was denied in April, the government now has until July 11 to seek Supreme Court review or ask for more time to decide, stay tuned. Learned John Welch predicts no appeal.

During our INTA panel discussion, I predicted the government will seek review of Brunetti by the U.S. Supreme Court. I also predicted the Supreme Court will pass on the request, stay tuned.

Even if it might be tempting to believe that — in our present culture — anything goes and nothing can rise to the level of scandalousness any longer, so why bother trying to salvage a statutory relic from more than 100 years ago, I’m thinking the federal government won’t throw in the towel yet.

As we’ve written before, the Brunetti decision, didn’t anchor itself to the viewpoint discriminatory requirement from the Supreme Court in Tam, instead focusing on mere content discrimination to justify invalidation of a more than a century old part of federal trademark law.

This much easier test for invalidation puts at risk many other portions of federal trademark law, so I’m thinking the federal government can’t let the mere content discriminatory requirement of Brunetti stand without at least trying for Supreme Court review for further direction and guidance.

It’s also hard to believe the federal government is truly ready to have the USPTO knowingly begin to federally register obscene, profane, and sexually explicit matter as trademarks, “in the name of the United States of America,” for the first time in history. What’s your prediction?

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