They are expected to file a response in court by mid-January.ĭaniel Snyder, the team’s owner, says the name honors Native Americans, and he has vowed never to change it.
Does registration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unconstitutionally endorse religion?”Īttorneys for Blackhorse declined to comment. “But if this Court holds that it does, how will the government explain registrations like Marijuana for Sale. “No one today thinks registration reflects government approval,” they wrote. It lost the first round in mid-2014, when the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board declared in a 2-to-1 ruling that the name offends a substantial number of Native Americans and is therefore ineligible for federal trademark registration under the Lanham Act, which doesn’t permit such protection for names that “may disparage” or bring people into disrepute. The team is on its third attempt in the past 18 months to save its trademark registrations.
We believe that the government’s action tramples core principles of free speech and sets a dangerous precedent for other brands.” Maury Lane, a spokesman for the team, said in a statement: “In fact, since 1870, over three million trademarks have been registered, and we have found none that have ever been cancelled for being disparaging. “A ban on registering ‘disparaging’ trademarks unconstitutionally burdens speech based on content and viewpoint, just as would a ban on registering copyrights for ‘disparaging’ books,” wrote the team’s attorneys, led by Lisa Blatt and Robert Raskopf. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.