The oldest of the trademarks at issue in the case was registered in 1967. But the Native American plaintiffs didn’t challenge it until 1992. Still, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board sided with them in a decision issued in 1994. The Redskins appealed to the district court in Washington, D.C., where its lawyer, Robert Raskopf (then of White & Case, now of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges) argued both that the plaintiffs had waited too long to challenge the marks and that there was not sufficient evidence on the record of disparagement. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sided with the Redskins in 2003.
But after an appeal by the plaintiffs, the D.C. Circuit sent the dispute back to Judge Kollar-Kotelly, instructing her to reconsider the case in light of the age of one of the Native American plaintiffs. Mateo Romero was only a year old in 1967, when the first Redskins trademark was registered, and turned 18 in 1984. The appellate court asked Judge Kollar-Kotelly to analyze the issue of delay since 1984, not 1967.
