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 The case could have implications for a higher-profile fight
over whether the Washington Redskins team in the National
Football League should lose its trademarks.
The Slants, which plays hard-charging grunge music it calls
Chinatown Dance Rock, applied for a trademark in 2010 and was
rejected on the grounds the name disparaged Asians. It reapplied
in 2011, without mentioning that it was an Asian band, but the
examiner looked at the earlier application and rejected it
again.
Federal law prohibits registration of disparaging trademarks.
Ronald Coleman, a lawyer who argued for The Slants in the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, said that the name did
not disparage Asian-Americans but sought to reclaim it, much
like the lesbian motorcycle club Dykes on Bikes, which did get a
trademark.
Arguing for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Molly Silfen
said that nothing prevented the band from using the name, so
free speech rights were not abridged, but the band had not shown
evidence that the slur was reclaimed.
The case is a twist on a fight over whether the Washington
Redskins should lose its trademarks because that name disparages
Native Americans.
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The NFL franchise, in its lawsuit against the five Native Americans
who successfully convinced a government tribunal in June to cancel
the trademarks, said the provision violates the First Amendment.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice told the court in the
Redskins case it would intervene to defend the constitutionality of
the Trademark Act’s disparagement provision.
The case is In Re Simon Shiao Tam, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, No 14-1203.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz and Andrew Chung; Editing by Ted Botha and
Grant McCool)
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