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15 August 2014Trademarks

Washington Redskins appeal against trademark cancellation

National Football League team the Washington Redskins has filed an appeal against the US Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) split decision to cancel the side’s trademarks, it said yesterday (August 14).

The team filed the appeal at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In June, the US Patent and Trademark Office revoked six Washington Redskins trademarks after the TTAB agreed with the plaintiff, a group of Native Americans, that they were disparaging and offensive.

Bob Raskopf, trademark attorney for the Washington Redskins, said: “We believe that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ignored both federal case law and the weight of the evidence, and we look forward to having a federal court review this obviously flawed decision.”

The team said that the court should reverse the TTAB’s order and “properly find that Native Americans did not consider the team name ‘Washington Redskins’ to be disparaging.”

According to a statement by the team, its complaint points out “many errors in the [TTAB]’s decision”, and asks the court to consider what it considers to be “serious constitutional issues” that the TTAB could not address as it “lack[ed] authority”.

Raskopf added: “The Washington Redskins look forward to all of the issues in the case being heard in federal court under the federal rules of evidence.

“The team is optimistic that the court will correctly and carefully evaluate the proofs, listen to the arguments, and confirm the validity of the Washington Redskins’ federal trademark registrations, just as another federal court has already found in a virtually identical case.”

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