U.S. Patent Office cancels trademark for Redskins football team

[rangerrebew]

U.S. Patent Office cancels trademark for Redskins football team
Posted on June 18, 2014 at 10:06 am 


Think Progress

[Ed. - But how is that helping the liberal cause? Won't this just mean that more people can use it?]

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name of the Washington Redskins, ruling that the name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus cannot be trademarked under federal law that prohibits the protection of offensive or disparaging language.

The U.S. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a ruling in the case, brought against the team by plaintiff Amanda Blackhorse, Wednesday morning.

“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the board wrote in its opinion.

“The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed with our clients that the team’s name and trademarks disparage Native Americans. The Board ruled that the Trademark Office should never have registered these trademarks in the first place,” Jesse Witten, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in a press release. “We presented a wide variety of evidence – including dictionary definitions and other reference works, newspaper clippings, movie clips, scholarly articles, expert linguist testimony, and evidence of the historic opposition by Native American groups – to demonstrate that the word ‘redskin’ is an ethnic slur.”

Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/06/18/u-s-patent-office-cancels-trademark-redskins-football-team/#373odLW5U3crhCeh.99

[andy58-in-nh]

Want to see heads explode?

Rename the team as the Washington "Crusaders".


    Go, Crusaders!

[jmyrlefuller]

So now, in order to punish Dan Snyder for using the name Redskins (a name that came with the team), the USPTO has now encouraged anyone to use it without trademark repercussions.

Flippin' brilliant move there.

[PzLdr]

Want to see heads explode?

Rename the team as the Washington "Crusaders".


    Go, Crusaders!

Name them after the gutless Washington pols. Call the the "Washington Foreskins"!

[jmyrlefuller]

Want to see heads explode?

Rename the team as the Washington "Crusaders".


    Go, Crusaders!

My idea was just to rename it to the Washington Skins, with the word "skins" always in red. Then Snyder sets up another entity somewhere with the team name Skins and in order to differentiate, you have to refer to them as the "Red Skins" or the "Blue Skins."

[musiclady]

Looks like when Obama and Reid didn't get their way, they sic'd the U.S. Government on Snyder.

Can we say 'government overreach??'   

[jmyrlefuller]

Looks like when Obama and Reid didn't get their way, they sic'd the U.S. Government on Snyder.

Can we say 'government overreach??'   

There is a history with the government and this team. Back in '62, the Redskins' founder, George Preston Marshall, was the last holdout on keeping his team all-white and segregated. The others had been nudged to accept black people about a decade before. So the Kennedy administration basically threatened Marshall with revoking the lease on what would eventually become RFK Stadium. Soon enough, Bobby Mitchell (who was black) was a Redskin.

Of course, it raises the question: if this was such a big deal, why didn't they address it until now? They could have done this in '62. They could have done this back when the trademark was filed. Yet they did nothing until this trumped up controversy flared up a year ago for no concrete reason. They had EIGHTY YEARS!

[Chieftain]

Per Wiki...

A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of pains and penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without privilege of a judicial trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person’s civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Bills of attainder were used in England between about 1300 and 1800 and resulted in the executions of a number of notable historical figures. However, the use of these bills eventually fell into disfavour due to the obvious potential for abuse and the violation of several legal principles, most importantly separation of powers, the right to due process, and the precept that a law should address a particular form of behaviour rather than a specific individual or group. For these reasons, bills of attainder are expressly banned by the United States Constitution as well as the constitutions of all 50 US states.

 

[flowers]

So does this mean China has all their Redskin printing presses ready to roll? This may slap the government back in it face. Think about it. Most are OK with this name. People will buy and wear Redskin stuff should this occur. It will fly off the chinaman pickup trucks.

[sinkspur]

Since every NFL team shares revenue (including sales of jerseys, etc.), they should join in a lawsuit challenging this. 

The irony of this is that,  should this patent ruling hold,  the use of the name "Redskin" might become even more prominent. 

[Reaganite Republican]

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/2014/06/after-revoking-trademark-obama-wh.html

[Chieftain]

Again, it appears the only reason you showed up here is to pimp your blog.  You used to do this all the time at FR, and I called you on it then too.

If you have nothing to say here but to pimp your blog, then why not go there and work on content that might actually attract an audience of your own.

And there is still nothing particularly "Reaganite" about anything that you post.

 

[mrclose]

"Daniel Snyder may be the last person in the world to realize this, but it's just a matter of time until he is forced to do the right thing and change the name."

- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

[flowers]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/u-s--patent-and-trademark-office-cancels-washington-redskins--trademarks-144712305.html

Most of the major blows to the supporters of the Washington Redskins' name have been just words. Now, there's a significant action against the nickname.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Redskins' trademarks. The petitioners, consisting of five Native Americans, sought to cancel the trademarks based on a section of the Trademark Act that "prohibits registration of marks that may disparage persons or bring them into contempt or disrepute."

Six trademarks for the team were canceled in a divided ruling by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The team has said it plans to appeal the decision.

The USPTO said in its ruling that "these registrations must be canceled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered, in violation of Section 2(a) of the Trademark Act of 1946, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)."

The trademarks that were canceled were granted between 1967 and 1990. Since 1992, the USPTO has denied to register trademarks that included Redskins at least 12 times, including seven applications from the Washington football team and one from NFL Properties (for "Boston Redskins"), according to USA Today. Disparagement grounds were cited for those denials.
The Redskins issued a statement from Bob Raskopf, trademark attorney for the team, regarding the split decision. It reads, in part:

    "We are confident we will prevail once again, and that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s divided ruling will be overturned on appeal. This case is no different than an earlier case, where the Board canceled the Redskins’ trademark registrations, and where a federal district court disagreed and reversed the Board. As today’s dissenting opinion correctly states, 'the same evidence previously found insufficient to support cancellation' here 'remains insufficient' and does not support cancellation.

"This ruling — which of course we will appeal — simply addresses the team’s federal trademark registrations, and the team will continue to own and be able to protect its marks without the registrations. The registrations will remain effective while the case is on appeal.

"When the case first arose more than 20 years ago, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled on appeal in favor of the Washington Redskins and their trademark registrations. ..."

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has defended the name and has shown no signs that he'd voluntarily consider changing it. As Raskopf said in the statement, the team will retain its federal trademark rights during an appeal, which could take a long time. The team can also continue to use the name and the logo even if the USPTO's ruling stands.

The ruling doesn't mean the team would have to change the name. The issue would be that anyone could try to sell Redskins merchandise because it isn't trademarked, though USA Today said the team could fight for its rights to the logo and name, citing "common law and state statutes."

The ruling might not have an immediate impact on anything the Redskins do. But it seems like a pretty large setback to the supporters of the nickname as pressure continues to mount for the team to change it.

[Relic]

The government is imposing it's will.
It would be cheaper and easier to just change the name, because the government, with the backing of the media, will not be denied.

[mrclose]

Again, it appears the only reason you showed up here is to pimp your blog.  You used to do this all the time at FR, and I called you on it then too.

If you have nothing to say here but to pimp your blog, then why not go there and work on content that might actually attract an audience of your own.

And there is still nothing particularly "Reaganite" about anything that you post.

 

humblegunner .. That you?

[evadR]

Blatant confiscation of private property

[NavyCanDo]

Want to see heads explode?

Rename the team as the Washington "Crusaders".


    Go, Crusaders!

I like teams named after something associated with the city or region. Like the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49rs.

Hmmmm Washington D.C.   What to choose???   

Washington Bandits
Washington Crooks
Washington Liars
Washington Gun Grabbers
Washington Tax-n-Spenders
Washington Robbers
Washington DCeivers
 

[GourmetDan]

Blatant confiscation of private property

We have descended into pure democracy where the opinions of the mob are enforced without restraint...

[NavyCanDo]

So does this mean China has all their Redskin printing presses ready to roll? This may slap the government back in it face. Think about it. Most are OK with this name. People will buy and wear Redskin stuff should this occur. It will fly off the chinaman pickup trucks.

Good point. Sales of anything Redskins will now skyrocket, don't you think. We can do a quick eBay check. I bet closely on the heels of the Super Bowl champs the Seattle Seahawks, are the Redskins in number of team items for sale.

[Chieftain]

humblegunner .. That you?

Not quite, but I do share his distaste for the common blog pimp.  RR is notorious for this kind of self-promoting post, and used to be even more notorious for plagiarising all kinds of other people's internet artwork and written pieces, and posting them as if they were original RR content.

I have a good memory, and a short fuse for persistent intarwebs pains in the ass, and RR leads my list.

[Luis Gonzalez]

So... it wasn't disparaging say, three years ago, or ten years ago, or twenty years ago but it's disparaging now?

That being the case, when it stops being disparaging, oh say in about another ten years (when all the people who decided some time in the last two years that the name that wasn't disparaging until now, is now disparaging, decide to grow up and take up topics of more substantial concern) will they be able to get the patent back?

I'd like to take this time to point out that (for rather obvious reason) naming a household cleaning product "Spic 'n Span" is offensive to my people.

I demand attrition, retributions, and massive remuneration paid to all those Latinos (like my mother) who worked as room maids for major hotel chains and had to endure staring at that demeaning name all their lives, then go home and be further demeaned when they sat down in front of their TV sets.

Once over lightly indeed.

Oh, the humanity.

[DCPatriot]

IMO, they should NEGOTIATE on behalf of Mr. Snyder's good senses...that the name change will not take effect until {future date}.

That "future date" should be not less than one hundred years from [date must not be back-dated].

This way...all the outraged and abused fans know their children or grandchildren will be free of the 'shame'.  They win.

And...Mr. Snyder's private property rights are protected and his trademark ....and investment on same....is safe.

Thank you very much.   

[DCPatriot]

IMO, one of the groups they...the name change advocates in the government..are pissing off is the Baby Boomer.

We grew up on Saturday morning Westerns...grew up in the movie genre...watched all those childhood stars pass on.  The adult ones are pushing 80+.

The "Redskins" were THE OPPONENT.   It was either Cowboys and Indians or Cowboys and Cowboys.   Or it was US Cavalry vs Indians.

That was all we had in our formative years.

Now that we're seasoned citizens, we can be honest when we say it's a term of endearment.

And my term endearment is more important than your fascist behavior.   Especially when a muti-BILLION dollar brand...somebody's PRIVATE property is the target.

[ABX]

Zero due process of law. A blatant 4th amendment violation all based on BS that some old white guys in DC created so they can rile people up.... bread and circuses. I bet the Lakota Sioux coach who named the Redskins as a term of honor is turning over in his grave. What's next, demanding Oklahoma change its state name due to the fact that it translates to Red Skin in Sioux?