‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark Case Morphs Into Free Speech Debate; Bloomberg Law, June 18, 2024

Laura Heymann , Bloomberg Law; ‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark Case Morphs Into Free Speech Debate

"The US Supreme Court’s June 13 decision in the “Trump Too Small” trademark case revealed a potential rift among the justices on First Amendment jurisprudence but did little to advance intellectual property law...

Trademark law, the Supreme Court has said in prior cases, is primarily about two goals: preventing confusion among consumers by ensuring accurate source identification and preserving trademark owners’ reputation and goodwill. For these justices, the names clause passed muster because prohibiting the registration of personal names without consent was self-evidently reasonable in light of these purposes; no further analysis was required."

Justices Will Probe Trademarks’ Nature in ‘Trump Too Small’ Case; Bloomberg Law, October 30, 2023

 Kyle Jahner, Bloomberg Law; Justices Will Probe Trademarks’ Nature in ‘Trump Too Small’ Case

"The fight over ‘Trump Too Small’ is the latest in a series of cases the court has faced in recent years raising First Amendment questions over trademark registrations. Although the justices skipped deciding the broader constitutional questions when they struck down different statutory registration bans in 2017 and 2019, this time the nature of the government’s argument may force the justices to now draw a line in the sand, he said."

May ‘Bad Spaniels’ Mock Jack Daniel’s? The Supreme Court Will Decide.; The New York Times, December 5, 2022

  Adam Liptak, The New York Times; May ‘Bad Spaniels’ Mock Jack Daniel’s? The Supreme Court Will Decide.

"The justices agreed last month to decide the fate of the Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker dog toy, which looks a lot like a bottle of Jack Daniel’s but with, as an appeals court judge put it, “lighthearted, dog-related alterations.”

The jokes are scatological. The words “Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” on the bottle are replaced on the toy by “the Old No. 2, on your Tennessee carpet.” Where Jack Daniel’s says its product is 40 percent alcohol by volume, Bad Spaniels’s is said to be “43 percent poo.”

A tag attached to the toy says it is “not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”

Trademark cases generally turn on whether the public is likely to be confused about a product’s source. In the Bad Spaniels case, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said the First Amendment requires a more demanding test when the challenged product is expressing an idea or point of view."

Redskins, rock band battle government in trademark fight; Washington Post, 9/19/16

Sam Hananel, Washington Post; Redskins, rock band battle government in trademark fight:

"Simon Tam has openly criticized the Washington Redskins team name as a racist slur that demeans Native Americans.

But Tam and his Asian-American rock band, The Slants, find themselves on the same side as the NFL franchise in a First Amendment legal battle over trademark protection for names that some consider offensive. The Supreme Court could decide as early as this month whether to hear the dispute involving the Portland, Oregon-area band. And if the football team has its way, the justices could hear both cases in its new term. At issue is a constitutional challenge to a law barring the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from registering trademarks that disparage minority groups. The office denied a trademark to the Slants in 2011 after finding the name disparaged people of Asian descent.