The Washington Redskins won’t be playing in the Super Bowl in February, but the odds keep improving that they’ll soon be appearing in the nation’s highest court.
A solid majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Tuesday that the Patent and Trademark Office practices unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination when it refuses to register “disparaging” trademarks. The 9-3 vote in In re Tam strikes down a 70-year-old provision of the Lanham Act and has the immediate effect of allowing Simon Tam to register the name of his Asian dance band, The Slants, despite PTO concerns that some Asian-Americans find the mark disparaging.
