Redskins seeks Supreme Court intervention in trademark case

National Football League (NFL) club the Washington Redskins has filed a petition at the US Supreme Court asking it to hear the club’s high-profile trademark dispute, even though an appeals court has yet to rule on the issue.

In a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, filed yesterday, April 25, the club has asked the Supreme Court whether a provision in the Lanham Act that prevents offensive or disparaging trademarks from being registered violates its First Amendment rights.

The club has also asked the court to determine whether the act’s disparagement clause is “impermissibly vague” and whether the government’s “decades-long delay between registering a trademark and cancelling the registration” violates due process.

The case dates back to 2014, when the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) cancelled six trademarks owned by the club that included the term ‘Redskins’. A redskin is an offensive term for a Native American.

A group of Native Americans had challenged the registrations, initially obtained between 1967 and 1990.

Following the TTAB’s ruling, the Redskins appealed against the decision at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but the court rejected its argument. The case is now pending before the fourth circuit.

The Redskins’ petition was filed just days after the Supreme Court received a petition from the USPTO to hear another dispute centring on disparaging trademarks.

In that case, In re Tam, US rock band The Slants successfully convinced the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn a TTAB ruling that rejected its trademark application for ‘The Slants’. A slant is a slang word for someone of Asian heritage.

The federal circuit accepted that denying the band a trademark would violate its First Amendment rights, prompting the USPTO to appeal against the ruling to the Supreme Court.

In its petition the Redskins said its case should be heard if In re Tam is.

“If this court nonetheless grants review in Tam, the court also should grant this petition to consider this case as an essential and invaluable complement to Tam,” the petition said.

WIPR will be  hosting a webinar on May 11 that will discuss both the Redskins and Slants cases.