Tuesday, April 16, 2019

SCOTUS Hears Arguments On Immoral Trademarks

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Iancu v. Brunetti (transcript of oral arguments). At issue is whether Sec. 2(a) of the Lanham Trademark Act that prohibits registration of a trademark that contains "immoral" matter is invalid under the free speech provisions of the 1st Amendment.  Here is the SCOTUSblog case page for the case linking to all the briefs and other pertinent material. Mark Walsh at SCOTUSblog describes the case as an introduction to his entertaining summary of oral arguments:
The first case for argument today involves the highly provocative trademark, “FUCT,” for a line of “streetwear” founded by Erik Brunetti in California in 1990.
Washington Post also reports on the oral arguments.