U.S. Patent Office Cancels Redskins' Trademark Registrations

Bill Jennings said:
What about the Pittsburgh Pirates? We can't have a team named after the thieves of the sea. Or Vikings, didn't they rape, burn, and pillage? Raiders? Doesn't sound like a nice group of young men to me. Packers? Isn't that derogatory towards gays? And the Cardinals? Won't the catholic church have a say on that one?

I'm sure there is a lot more if I think about it.
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What about the Red Mesa Redskins? They appear to have a lot of merchandise for sale. I assume they've registered a trademark.

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EppyGA said:
Rich, whether we agree or disagree on the name issue itself, your recitation of how the system is meant to work vs. how it did work in this instance should be what scares us.

It seems more and more we are seeing various areas of the government just deciding to do things differently because they want to in spite of what the law says. That is troubling.
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WTF you (the collective you as in y'all) going to do about it? Not a damned thing, never have, never will, just ***** and whine as always. Changing things requires effort, sacrifice, and exposing oneself to the unknown, and that isn't going to happen in America until it's too late. We are the most spoiled rotten nation in the world and expect these things to be taken care of by someone else.
 
Gary F said:
Although I disagree with the government's approach in an attempt to force the name change it is true that many Native Americans find the name Redskin very offensive. I have a friend who is a member of the Ojibwa tribe and she has educated me on many of these issues. Many people in this world are too thin skinned and easily insulted but it's worse to be rude or insensitive. The owner(s) should voluntarily rename the team.
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The most recent poll I could find indicated about 10% of native Americans felt it was offensive.
 
roncachamp said:
The most recent poll I could find indicated about 10% of native Americans felt it was offensive.
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Bull poop, a ten year old rather question added on to another pole which hit 740 people who self identified as native american in a political poll sent to a larger audience during an election year, had only 10% claim offense.

That's hardly a compelling poll of the native american population as a whole.
 
roncachamp said:
In your opinion.



Polling indicates about 10% find it offensive.
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A single ill-crafted poll. You crab on to one piece of bullpoop and hold it out as a fundamental universal truth.
 
flyingron said:
Bull poop, a ten year old rather question added on to another pole which hit 740 people who self identified as native american in a political poll sent to a larger audience during an election year, had only 10% claim offense.

That's hardly a compelling poll of the native american population as a whole.
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Well, if you have a better poll then please share it with us.
 
flyingron said:
A single ill-crafted poll. You crab on to one piece of bullpoop and hold it out as a fundamental universal truth.
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What was ill-crafted about it? Is it "bullpoop" solely because the results run counter to your personal opinion?
 
roncachamp said:
What was ill-crafted about it? Is it "bullpoop" solely because the results run counter to your personal opinion?
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No, because it wasn't designed to inquire to the native american population as to their opinion. It was a question tacked on to a general election political survey for other reasons. They just combed out the responses of the overall survey and found a number of surveys of people who claimed to be native-american and used the answer they gave to the question. All you have to do is read the Annenberg's own description of the 2004 survey. They had to go to great lengths to even get 749 surveys to try to base their conclusion against.

It's one very small sample size that people hold up to say "see the indians don't care what the team name is" but it's clear from other things that it is not universally true.


As I said, it's easy to spot the rhetoric of bigotry. The target changes but the language stays the same.

It's like the military. The same arguments were used to keep blacks, women, and gays out of service. Almost word for word. Similar comparisons between interracial marriage and then gay marriage.
 
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flyingron said:
No, because it wasn't designed to inquire to the native american population as to their opinion. It was a question tacked on to a general election political survey for other reasons. They just combed out the responses of the overall survey and found a number of surveys of people who claimed to be native-american and used the answer they gave to the question. All you have to do is read the Annenberg's own description of the 2004 survey. They had to go to great lengths to even get 749 surveys to try to base their conclusion against.
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How does that differ from other surveys? One frequently hears things like, "In a poll of likely voters..." How do they know they're likely voters? They ask them.
 
roncachamp said:
An issue was needed that could shift focus from the IRS, Benghazi, Obamacare, economy, etc.
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Exactly. This is so far out of the realm of government it may as well be on another planet. Doesn't prevent dickless Harry from getting on the floor of the senate to ***** and moan about it though. :mad2:
 
flyingron said:
As I said, it's easy to spot the rhetoric of bigotry. The target changes but the language stays the same.
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Its hard for me to say if this is yet another instance of throwing around the "bigot" label by the left side of the political spectrum, or legitimate given the topic of discussion. You'd have to admit that the left have an extensive track record to wearing the "bigot" label threadbare from over-use (like getting a black guy in DC government fired for using the word "niggardly", a word which has no racial connotation, and was used correctly in context, merely because it sounded like an offensive slur).
 
cowman said:
Every time I hear about some group upset because they are offended and try to get an image or a flag banned... or some person who said a word banned I just don't really get it.

I am unable to conceive of a word or logo or anything that would make me so upset I'd feel the need to try to prevent others from or punish them for using it.
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Anyone who feels offended by some term has the right to oppose that term being registered as a trademark prior to the registration being granted. That's a created, statutory right, not a constitutional right, and there is a 30-day period built in to the trademark registration process for that purpose. Anyone at all may file an opposition to registration or a motion to extend the time to oppose IF they do so within that 30-day window.

Once a trademark is issued, it become the intellectual property of the owner / registrant, with all the pursuant property rights. In addition, many subsequent decisions and transactions are typically made based upon possession of the trademark, and these decisions may affect many people in addition to the owner / registrant.

For example, in the Redskins case, I can think of the following people, off the top of my head, who would be affected by a registration cancellation:


  • The trademark owner and their employees
  • The league, to whatever extent the decision affects them, and their employees
  • The companies that manufacturer licensed apparel and other merchandise
  • Those companies' contractors and suppliers
  • The employees of all of the affected companies
  • Retailers who specialize in the sale of licensed merchandise, and their employees
  • The vendors in the stands at the games who sell licensed merchandise
All of these parties (and probably others) are affected by any change in the trademark status.

Because of the significance of a trademark to its registrant, its inherent value as intellectual property, and the many other licenses, agreements, contracts, and people who might be affected by a change in status, it's essential that decisions to cancel trademarks not be made lightly. The petitioner should be required to show actual damage before their petition is even entertained.

"It hurts my feelings" just doesn't cut it.

It would have cut it during the 30-day opposition period, but not after the fact, when the mark has been registered, and when third-party contracts and licenses, millions of dollars in revenues, and hundreds or thousands of jobs, all hang in the balance

If that were not the case, I could easily challenge the Godfather's Pizza trademarks and all of their associated visual marks for being disparaging of Italian-Americans. Pizza is an Italian word that refers to a product of Italian origin, the company's logos use the colors of the Italian flag, and their trademark name and marketing materials refer to a fictitious Italian mafia boss, thus perpetuating the stereotype that an inordinate number of Italian-Americans are involved in organized crime.

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And just to add insult to injury, as much as I like Herman Cain, Godfather's Pizza is the worst pizza I've ever had. It defames and slanders pizza, and Italian food by extension, just by virtue of how incredibly bad it is. I mean, it makes Domino's seem good by comparison.

So yeah, as an Italian-American, I have as much right to challenge Godfather's trademark as Native American's did to challenge the Redskins'. The problem is that the opportunity to oppose the Godfather's trademark expired in 1973; so no matter how much my feelings might be hurt by the trademark were my skin much thinner than it is, the opposition period has expired, the trademark has been granted, and my hurt feelings are not nearly sufficient grounds to nullify the company's intellectual property rights.

At some point, people need to realize that having their feelings hurt is not the same thing as having suffered damages. Whininess is not a legally compensable condition.

-Rich
 
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nddons said:
Now THAT would be entertaining to see! Harry Reid on the floor of the senate complaining that the new name isn't feminine enough.
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Do a Trademark search for Registered Trademarks with the word "Slut" in them.

Haven't seen anyone clamoring to remove those.

Cleveland Indians are next, in this PC love-fest, right?
 
RJM62 said:
And just to add insult to injury, as much as I like Herman Cain, Godfather's Pizza is the worst pizza I've ever had. It defames and slanders pizza, and Italian food by extension, just by virtue of how incredibly bad it is. I mean, it makes Domino's seem good by comparison.
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I wouldn't rate Godfather's very highly but no true pizza aficionado would rate Domino's above Godfather's.
 
roncachamp said:
I wouldn't rate Godfather's very highly but no true pizza aficionado would rate Domino's above Godfather's.
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I wouldn't eat either, it's like comparing turds or politicians, neither choice is going to be appealing.
 
Henning said:
I wouldn't eat either, it's like comparing turds or politicians, neither choice is going to be appealing.
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You are disparaging turds everywhere by comparing them to politicians.

-Rich
 
Anyone have other examples of trademarks being pulled in this manner?
 
EppyGA said:
Those are rejections of applications, I asked if there was an example of having a long held trademark pulled.
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I don't remember the details, but OSIA had a few cancelled back in the 1980's and 1990's. But I'm pretty sure that all the successful petitions wound up being default judgments because the registrants failed to defend their marks.

I opposed the whole crusade, by the way, for the reasons I stated above.

-Rich
 
Everskyward said:
Examples here.

http://petitiontocancel.com/whathappensafterpetitiontocancel.html

Not sure how many were actually successful, but in another place I read that there were about 1500 cancelations in 2013.
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I know for a fact that OSIA v The Memphis Mafia did not result in cancellation.

I suspect that most cancellations are based on more mundane reasons than disparagement of a group, such as prior use, similarity to an existing mark, and so forth.

Personally, I think most of those petitions should be dismissed, too. There is a 30-day window during which to file opposition to new marks. There also are companies that will monitor all new trademark applications, for very reasonable fees, to alert trademark owners to applications for registration of possibly infringing or damaging marks. Usually the first notification that you receive that your application was approved is from one of the monitoring companies, not USPTO.

If people don't file their objections during the specified time period, as far as I'm concerned, they should be out of luck. Allowing retroactive petitions for opposition under anything other than the most extreme circumstances is not only damaging to a company's business, but also opens the door to extortion.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
It would have cut it during the 30-day opposition period, but not after the fact, when the mark has been registered, and when third-party contracts and licenses, millions of dollars in revenues, and hundreds or thousands of jobs, all hang in the balance

If that were not the case, I could easily challenge the Godfather's Pizza trademarks and all of their associated visual marks for being disparaging of Italian-Americans.
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You may not win, but you certainly could try. The TM law lets you oppose an application for registration (within 30 days of publication for anything, usually based on priority of use) or petition to cancel a registration (within 5 years of registration for anything including priority). Other than the fact that the registration was already issued, an opposition proceeding and a cancellation proceeding are very much the same thing.

After 5 years, the registrant can file a petition for incontestability that cuts of most grounds for challenge, but you can still file a petition for cancellation after a mark is incontestable for certain things such as genericness, registration was obtained by fraud, or the mark is disparaging.
 
register@teamandras.com said:
You may not win, but you certainly could try. The TM law lets you oppose an application for registration (within 30 days of publication for anything, usually based on priority of use) or petition to cancel a registration (within 5 years of registration for anything including priority). Other than the fact that the registration was already issued, an opposition proceeding and a cancellation proceeding are very much the same thing.

After 5 years, the registrant can file a petition for incontestability that cuts of most grounds for challenge, but you can still file a petition for cancellation after a mark is incontestable for certain things such as genericness, registration was obtained by fraud, or the mark is disparaging.
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Thanks. I was mixing fact with opinion and didn't make the distinctions clear.

Because the opportunity to oppose registration of a mark does in fact exist at the time of application, I think it should be extraordinarily difficult to even open a case contesting a mark once the registration has been approved.

I also think "loser pays" should apply. Lots of these cases are frivolous, and some are outright extortion attempts. The latter should be prosecuted as crimes. (Again, just my opinion. Nothing more.)

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
If people don't file their objections during the specified time period, as far as I'm concerned, they should be out of luck. Allowing retroactive petitions for opposition under anything other than the most extreme circumstances is not only damaging to a company's business, but also opens the door to extortion.
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On the other hand, times change and what was seen as socially acceptable in the past may not be so now, and vice versa. If you look at historical ads and names of products you will see some that would be seen as offensive today. I'm guessing they were offensive to the targeted groups even back then, but these groups did not have the political or social power to do anything about it at the time. I'm not sure how change came about in any of these cases, whether companies decided it was in their best interest to change their product name or ad, or whether it was because of some legal action. I suspect both.
 
Everskyward said:
On the other hand, times change and what was seen as socially acceptable in the past may not be so now, and vice versa. If you look at historical ads and names of products you will see some that would be seen as offensive today. I'm guessing they were offensive to the targeted groups even back then, but these groups did not have the political or social power to do anything about it at the time. I'm not sure how change came about in any of these cases, whether companies decided it was in their best interest to change their product name or ad, or whether it was because of some legal action. I suspect both.
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Here's a recent MP3 player, that was apparently offensive to some people. :rofl::rofl:

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