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Patent Office quandary: No to 'Redskins,' yes to 'Crazy Bitch'? | WashingtonExaminer.com
JUNE 23, 2014 | 6:14 AM
Law professor Jonathan Turley questions the U.S. Patent Office's decision to rescind trademark protection for the Washington Redskins. While the move pleased many activists and politicians, Turley asks in a Washington Post article Sunday, is such social activism on the part of a federal agency really a good idea?
"As federal agencies have grown in size and scope, they have increasingly viewed their regulatory functions as powers to reward or punish citizens and groups," Turley writes. "There is an obvious problem when the sanctioning of free exercise of religion or speech becomes a matter of discretionary agency action."
In Turley's view, some trademarks are protected not because of any inherent free speech rights, but simply because no one has yet challenged them. "Currently trademarked slogans such as 'Uppity Negro' and 'You Cant Make A Housewife Out Of A Whore' could lose their protections," he writes, "despite the social and political meaning they hold for their creators."
That's an understatement. It is, in fact, easy to find a multitude of potentially problematic trademarks. Indeed, a stroll through the Patent Office's Trademark Electronic Search System is a lesson in the remarkable diversity of trademark-protected names -- names that some Americans might well find offensive.
For example, there are registered trademarks that could easily offend some women. Start with "Crazy Bitch" (a barbecue sauce registered in August 2013). Or "That Bitch is Nuts" (a roasted nuts snack registered in October 2013). Or "Bitches of South Beach" (a reality show title registered in November 2012). That's just three; there are plenty of others.
