{"id":1268,"date":"2019-06-24T15:35:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T20:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2019-06-24T23:31:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T04:31:10","slug":"the-supreme-court-says-fuct-it-to-a-trademark-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/the-supreme-court-says-fuct-it-to-a-trademark-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Words: Supreme Court Says “FUCT” It With This New Trademark Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Say what you want. At least according to The Supreme Court which struck down a federal ban on \u201cscandalous\u201d and \u201cimmoral\u201d trademarks.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the Supreme Court ruled today to ban certain lewd or inappropriate trademarks was a violation of the First Amendment. The specific case reviewed by the Supreme Court was based on Los Angeles clothing brand \u201cFUCT.\u201d Justice Kagan wrote the opinion and stated the law prohibiting \u00a0\u201cscandalous\u201d trademarks \u201cinfringes the First Amendment because it disfavors certain ideas.\u201d Justice Alito highlighted that \u201ca law banning speech deemed by government officials to be \u2018immoral\u2019 or \u2018scandalous\u2019 can easily be exploited for illegitimate ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Roberts Court, November 30, 2018. Seated, from left to right: Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel A. Alito. Standing, from left to right: Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett M. Kavanaugh. Photograph by Fred Schilling, Supreme Court Curator’s Office.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We have a right to express ourselves as we see fit, which is ultimately what the Supreme Court ruled this morning. The First Amendment states that \u201ccongress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.\u201d Since the federal law applying to \u201cscandalous\u201d trademarks is based on the content of the message, the Court would apply a strict scrutiny level of review. This means the Court would need to find a compelling governmental interest, and the specific law is necessary to achieve this interest by the least restrictive means possible. I agree with the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to strike down the law. The \u201cFUCT\u201d brand does not entice anger or fighting words. The slogan is merely an edgy and clever play on words. People deserve to brand their products in the way they see fit, outside of words or phrases encouraging violence, crime, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Say what you want. At least according to The Supreme Court which struck down a federal ban on \u201cscandalous\u201d and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/askcarterlaw.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}