Also automatic federal venue instead of having to prove diversity jurisdiction.
ETA: plus stuff in Ascenray’s link.
That was exactly what I was looking for, thanks! It’s three weeks to the bar exam and my brain is beginning to shut down, so you’ll have to forgive the rather vague wording of my question.
Yes, without this it’s the obligation of the trademark holder to get an injunction from a court. But that’s fairly routine too.
Yeah, that’s fair enough. I think I’d be fine with saying “disparaging trademarks should be treated like all other trademarks”, and offensive though a name may be, it doesn’t need to be the role of the government to proclaim its offensiveness.
I do think though that once you go down the route of saying "We’re going to treat disparaging names differently than other names, the fact that a bunch of people who aren’t the ones being insulted think the name is just fine and dandy doesn’t really count for much of anything.
Well, when you put it like that…
…good point. 
What do you have to say now that the court didn’t?
Something interesting (maybe only to me) - the judge was born in and educated in the DC area so he presumably lived most, if not all of his life there and he is probably a sports fan (he referenced a quote from former basketball player Allan Iverson in his decision) yet he managed to get past the “heritage not hate” hubris (hmm… where does that phrase ring a bell… Oh yeah, that’s it!) and call the name what it is: Disparaging, despicable, and racist.
“…the appeal board declared in a 2-to-1 vote that the team’s moniker is offensive to Native Americans.”
That shit required a vote? Way to go, humans!
:smack:
As activists have pointed out this whole time, I don’t see how you can think the name is offensive AND think it’s okay as a team name. Believe one or the other, that’s fine, but both together?
I haven’t read the ruling but heard that the judge used the recent SCOTUS ruling on the Texas license plate case re: confederate flag in justifying the government’s right to reject certain items I.e. The trademark registration is government speech and not private speech. Somehow I don’t equate the state of Texas issuing a license plate to a resident the same as a commercial enterprise seeking a trademark, but that may just be me.
I have nothing to say until the circuit court rules.
Yet, one question persists: You still don’t think the word is racist?
I’ve emphasized this repeatedly in this thread and others, but here goes again.
Regardless of how this eventually comes out, you are never going to be able to parse this issue correctly until you start thinking and speaking and writing in a way that distinguishes a trademark from a registration.
The Redskins are not “seeking a trademark.” They are seeking (to preserve) a registration. The registration is not the trademark.
And one doesn’t seek a trademark from the government. One uses a trademark and one owns or holds a trademark (to be precise, trademark rights) based on activities that have nothing to do with the PTO. You don’t get a trademark from the PTO—you go out and earn your trademark yourself.
In today’s opinion, the court went to great lengths to make this distinction. The PTO doesn’t grant trademarks. It doesn’t say what trademarks get created. It doesn’t say what trademarks get used. It only decides whether a trademark can be registered.
(A trademark is something that a commercial enterprise can have property interest in. According to today’s decision, a registration is not property.)
Someone kept asking me today what the Redskins have actually lost in this decision. When it comes right down to it—other than the customs issue—all they’ve lot is some face. For all practical purposes, what it amounts to is a moral and a public relations loss.
Why is my personal opinion remotely relevant?
There’s a whole forum for people to share their opinions.
You didn’t have a problem before. In fact, you said very succinctly:
You had no problem giving your opinion - I assume you thought it was relevant before? I think it’s still relevant and would like to know if you still feel that way.
Well, shit, all these years, I’ve been posting my personal opinions in the wrong forum? And nobody bothered to tell me? You guys are a bunch of dicks!
That makes sense…thanks.
Almost a year to the day…
• The Redskins logo in use today was first designed in 1971 in close consultation with Native American leaders. Among those who unanimously approved and voiced praise for the logo was Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a former President of the National Congress of American Indians and Chairman of the Blackfeet Nation. Years earlier, Mr. Wetzel had been deeply involved with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the movement for civil liberties, civil rights, and economic freedom for all. In 2014, Mr. Wetzel’s son Don commented, “It needs to be said that an Indian from the State of Montana created that [Redskins] logo, and did it the right way. It represents the Red Nation, and it’s something to be proud of.”
• Similarly dignified images of Native Americans in traditional headdress are still in use by other American organizations, as well. For example, The National Congress of American Indians—which, coincidentally, was founded after the Washington Redskins football team—has such a logo.
Also:
Before all the fanfare associated with Redskins football, there was the name itself.
• More than a decade ago, in the authoritative linguistic survey “I Am A Red-Skin: The Adoption of a Native American Expression (1769-1826),” Ives Goddard—the senior linguist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution—concluded that the word “redskins” was created by Native Americans, and that it was first used as an inclusive expression of solidarity by multi-tribal delegations who traveled to Washington, D.C. to negotiate national policy towards Native Americans. “The actual origin of the word (redskin) is entirely benign,” Goddard is quoted as saying.
• Prominent Indian leaders of the 19th century—from Sitting Bull (a Hunkpapa Lakota Chief) to French Crow (Principal Chief of the Wahpekute band of Santee Sioux) to Tecumseh (a Shawnee chief)—are documented as having referred to themselves as “Red Men” or “Red-skins.”
• On the inaugural Redskins team in 1933, four players and then-head coach William Henry “Lone Star” Dietz identified themselves as Native Americans.
So call 'em the Crackers. I wouldn’t mind having a football team named after my race.
Oh wait, you can’t, because that might imply that White people are worthy of recognition. Sorry, forgot my liberal values there.