On June 24, 2019, in its decision on Iancu v. Brunetti, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Lanham Act’s ban on offensive trademark registrations, ruling that the ban violates the First Amendment. While the dissenting opinion suggests there may be a “rush” to register such trademarks, many IP practitioners don’t believe the push for profane or scandalous marks will be that drastic and that those trademark applications will still have a difficult time becoming registered. Law360 contacted Finnegan attorney Mark Sommers for his thoughts on the case.
Mark said, “Simply emblazoning a phrase on the front of T-shirt does not make it a trademark. This ruling will probably lead to stricter examination of whether these particular terms are being used as indicators of source, as opposed to mere expressions, as opposed to simple vulgarity."
