The Washington Reagans?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Why not the Washington Reagans? You only need to change a few letters and whiten up the mascot some.

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) June 18, 2014

Eight years after a group of Native Americans filed a lawsuit seeking to repeal the Washington Redskins trademark, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has done just that. The team’s name, the ruling says, is “disparaging to Native Americans” and trademarks that “disparage” or engender “contempt or disrepute” are prohibited by federal law.

The ruling doesn’t require the Redskins to change their name, but if it’s upheld after the inevitable appeals, the team may decide to do so anyway since its name will no longer be protected. If anything, the ruling should settle the debate over whether redskin is a slur or an honorific.

-- Adam K. Raymond at New York Magazine

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I think the argument will be that the founders
had no problem with the word, and that is all
that matters.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

The founders won't have anything to do with it. The PTO - along with trademark protection generally - is a creature of statute, so it'll be just a matter of interpreting statutory text.

That is, if the "disparaging" standard is upheld, at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to toss it on First Amendment grounds.

[deborahkla.livejournal.com]

Best comment ever.