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US Patent Office Cancels Redskins Trademark (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter cobalt_27
- Start date
MattFancy
Footballguy
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
A group of plaintiffs are free to challenge those trademarks if they feel they are disparaging/damaging to them so long as they have standing to challenge those particular trademarks in court. An African American group could likely challenge those that contain the "N" word. Perhaps a Women's group could challenge the other two, but that may prove to be a little more difficult.
You are accusing one group of being duped (those that would like to see the name changed), but yet you are trying to "dupe" the Shark Pool by introducing a straw man argument - and one that is not "apples to apples".
The Redskins are a pretty prominent organization whose name is constantly broadcast on television and in the print media. What "businesses" are using the trademarks on the "N" word - my guess is that these products barely see the light of day and therefore are not prominent enough for anyone to even know they exist, and therefor go unchallenged. Are you suggesting that if Coca-Cola tried to trademark and then market a product heavily using one of those words, people would sit back and just accept it?
Once again, I'm not particularly offended by the use of "Redskins" (I played on a travel soccer team as a youth that used that name in fact), but it's hard to argue that its not indeed a racial slur, and only because the group it "offends" isn't exactly a loud prominent majority/minority in this Country it doesn't really get recognized as to how wrong it really is. Most of us think of Native Americans as "Indians" that only exist in the movies, and not actual people that walk among us.
I'm pretty sure if a team tried to call themselves any nickname recognized as a racial slur to the Jews, Asians, Italians, Russians, Mexicans, Latinos, or many other races it wouldn't fly.
The NFL and Washington franchise are a private business and they can frankly do whatever they want, and obviously keeping the names isn't likely going to have any impact on their bottom line - but it just seems wrong for the name to exist. It's not my battle to fight however, and I'm fully willing to admit that I'm not going to boycott the NFL anytime soon over this. I actually do believe it would be a good thing for Snyder to change it, if he's compensated for doing so (if the NFL allowed the Redskins to profit from all of their merchandise sales alone for example) - and after a while no one would feel any differently about the Washington Warriors or Washington Renegades than they would about the Washington Redskins. Life would go on.
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What is ironic is that for the tactic to work...making the name so unprofitable for Snyder that he dumps it...competitors in the market place will have to now enter the marketplace and spend capital producing goods that they know are a Snyder-decision away from becoming obsolete. If they are timid, Snyder keeps rolling along undeterred. If they are aggressive, what if he yanks the rug out from underneath them?
So what happens is that people start pumping out dirt (but now legal) cheap knock-offs in an effort to capitalize on the moment.
So the people that are offended by the name get to see the market flooded with $5 swap meet T's which will inevitably be dumped into charities and thrift stores, even if the name gets changed, thus ensuring that the "derogatory" name continues to be plastered eveywhere for another decade or so. Every homeless person on the east coast will be sporting a Redskins T.
Not to mention the diehards that will collect authentic, vintage gear and continue to sell it on eBay.
Not to mention the anti-PC crowd that can now get gear printed up without reprisal and still wear it to games out of spite.
Bronco Billy
Footballguy
It's expected that people will be distracted - some willingly - by an issue like this when there are much more impactful events occurring. That this is rising as an issue now is hardly a coincidence.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
One on the most tired political rants (against either party), is "Don't they have more important things to worry about?".
The ironic thing is that people are using that argument here, when it is a government agency that is doing the exact job it is intended to do. Whether you agree with the ultimate decision or not, it's a strange argument to make that perhaps the US Patent Office should be concentrating on things that really matter like poverty, the broken healthcare system or the Middle East instead of some stupid trademark challenge brought to them by a handful of ungrateful injuns.
On top of that, I don't think every other issue is being pushed aside by this one - maybe on ESPN, but other news networks are still covering the "impactful events" last I checked (which was this morning).
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Amused to Death
Footballguy
Some people just let their partisan hate impact every issue. I call it the "Limbaugh" syndrome.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
Washington is not being forced to change the name "Redskins". They are just prevented from trademarking the name "Redskins". Since the state of Oklahoma has not trademarked the word "Oklahoma" (as far as I know), it's not comparable.matttyl said:
Basically, Washington's trademark prevents me from printing and selling T-Shirts that say "Washington Redskins". If that trademark is gone, I can print and sell to my heart's content. Washington might feel pressured to change to a different name that they can trademark to prevent me from eating into their merchandising sales, but nobody is forcing them to change- they are free to keep "Redskins" and just lose out on that money when I print up my own Redskins gear and sell it for cheaper.
Likewise, Oklahoma doesn't have to change its name, it just can't stop me from printing t-shirts with its name on them.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
This lawsuit originated during the Bush, Sr. administration, was first decided during the Clinton administration, was appealed throughout the Bush, Jr. administration, and was decided a second time during the Obama administration.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
Thanks for the link!
All 8 trademarks featuring the n-word were registered within the last decade or so. None of them were ever enforced, and all were abandoned within two years.
Why do you think none of these trademarks predate the year 2001? Do you think nobody ever tried to trademark the n-word before 2001? Or have all of those prior examples of the n-word being trademarked already been cleared off the books by the exact sort of legal process used against the Redskins trademark?
Why do you think the only n-word trademarks remaining on the books were never enforced? Do you think that nobody has ever tried to enforce such a trademark? Or have all attempts to enforce such a trademark drawn attention to the fact that it was essentially unenforceable and gotten it stricken from the records?
Why do you think the only remaining n-word trademarks were all abandoned within two years? Do you think that nobody with an n-word trademark has ever tried to maintain it? Or have all businesses which retained the n-word trademark for any substantial length of time come to the attention of someone and had their trademark challenged through the exact same legal process just used to strike down the Redskins trademark?
The c-word trademarks are exactly the same. Filed within the last decade, never enforced, abandoned within two years.
So again, thanks for the link, but I don't think it's proving the point you think it's proving. All this proves is that with other clearly derogatory trademarks, they rarely see the light of day, and those that do get aggressively culled from the registry at several points, so that all remains are a few recently-registered, hastily-conceived, quickly-abandoned trademarks that only survive because nobody ever knew they existed (or it's not worth the time and money to get them dropped).
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Bronco Billy
Footballguy
I'm completely uninterested in a political discussion here.
If you think this is a critical issue right now, and that it should be at or near the top of news cycles as opposed to other significant events, and further that it coincidentally reared its head right now with those other events ongoing when it could have come up at any time previously, I can't help you - and you likely don't want to be helped.
If you think this is a critical issue right now, and that it should be at or near the top of news cycles as opposed to other significant events, and further that it coincidentally reared its head right now with those other events ongoing when it could have come up at any time previously, I can't help you - and you likely don't want to be helped.
MattFancy
Footballguy
RUSF18
Footballguy
Who is saying this is a critical issue? Our country would be operating the same if no one was talking about this. And it's at the top of news cycles because it has enormous and far-reaching public interest.
A few days ago, the top of news cycles were dominated by the story of the 20th anniversary of one man being televised running from the police. Was that a "critical issue"?
matttyl
Footballguy
I wasn't asking from a trademark point of view, but rather from a political correctness point of view. I feel networks stopped using the word Redskins last year because it was the politically correct thing to do. Maybe I should have used the phrase "stop using" instead of "change". I understand that they can still use the name if they want, it's just not trademarked. TV networks, and newspapers, and other media outlets have taken it upon themselves to stop using the word - and many did so well before this trademark news this week. So, if that's to be stopped, why isn't using a word that literally means "red people"? Shouldn't that also not be PC to say?
John 14:6
Jesus is Lord!
Yeah, if we're only going to talk about the most important issues, let's close down all the football related threads here and just discuss world hunger.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
I don't know. I don't feel like it's my place to manufacture outrage on behalf of someone else. If there are many Native American-led protests to the name Oklahoma, and a "substantial composite" of the Native American population views the word as a racial slur, then I would support exploring the possibility of a name change. I am unaware of any such outrage, but that hardly means it doesn't exist. If many independent outlets felt a moral imperative to stop using the word, then I support their right to let that opinion compete in the free market. I wouldn't be any more or less likely to support them if they did, but that's the beauty of the free market- it's morally neutral and allows the participants to reward or punish ideas as they see fit.
Do I think that if we declare one thing offensive, we must declare everything else that is linguistically or semantically similar to be equally offensive? No. That would be like suggesting that, since black people don't like being called "blackie", we should stop calling them "black people", too- I mean, both are just ways of pointing out the darkness of their skin color, right? And I can similarly say that "********" is offensive and "chinese man" is not, even though both phrases are linguistically very similar. If I call an elderly black man that I am unfamiliar with "uncle", that is offensive. If I call my father's brother "uncle", that is not offensive, even though it's the exact same word. Similarly, I feel no compunction at all about calling my son "boy", though that word becomes extremely problematic if placed into a different context. If Native Americans passed a resolution tomorrow saying that they wanted to be called "Red People", I wouldn't take that as a signal that "redskin" was suddenly acceptable again. They're two different terms. Each carries its own distinct linguistic baggage and history, and neither is served by judging it through the lens of the other.
Reducing complex matters of racial privilege and historical power imbalances to a series of "gotcha" moments and arbitrary rules doesn't do any justice to the issues at stake. If we do need an arbitrary, hard-and-fast rule for what is and is not okay when referring to minorities (or, really, when referring to anyone at all), a good one that I try to adhere to is "don't call people things that they don't want to be called".
It's not at all clear that Snyder won't be able to stop you from printing up your own Redskins gear and selling it.
Trademarks originate under state common law. You do not need to register a trademark in order to enforce it. Federal registration provides certain benefits -- for example, it allows you to have Customs and Border Patrol seize infringing imports -- but those benefits are limited. The primary benefit of a trademark is preventing others from using the mark, and that benefit does not depend on federal registration.
The court in this proceeding specifically said: "This decision concerns only the statutory right to registration under Section 2(a). We lack statutory authority to issue rulings concerning the right to use trademarks."
So this is only about federal registration of the trademark, not about the validity of the trademark itself, or its enforcement.
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GregR
Footballguy
Hey nittanylion, can you elaborate on what the cost to taxpayers is that you're referring to?
I know there were a couple of letters sent to Snyder, and a requested for a hearing which never made it past a request. Those don't seem like things that have significant cost.
If we had to name a most responsible party for the money spent over the decades it took the Patent Office to handle the challenge from citizens, it would probably have to be Snyder for delaying tactics to stop the case from being resolved.
What else happened that you're referring to that cost tax payers much money?
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Yenrub
Footballguy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OklahomaJohn 14:6 said:
The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning red people. Choctaw Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government regarding the use of Indian Territory, in which he envisioned an all-Indian state controlled by the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language used to describe the Native American race as a whole. Oklahoma later became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was officially approved in 1890, two years after the area was opened to white settlers.[9][16][17]
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matttyl
Footballguy
And the story may be true that the Redskins name for the team was from the son of a Sioux Indian (no, not a "Chief", but a descendant from the tribe nonetheless).
What's known is that 4 Native Americans played with the team the first year it had that name. I understand it was a totally different time than today, but if it really was such a bad word, why would they play for the team.
squistion
Footballguy
Not true. That story (and others) regarding the origin of the team name have been refuted. A 1933 news article was recently found with the team's then owner, George Marshall, giving an explanation as to how the name was chosen.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/1933-news-article-refutes-cherished-tale-that-redskins-were-named-to-honor-indian-coach/2014/05/28/19ad32e8-e698-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html
Bob Magaw
Footballguy
Lot more than one person to get this kind of traction.1) Words can have different meanings. Sometimes the origins and derivation can be shrouded in the mists of time. Maybe some connotations are positive, some are neutral, some are negative. Sometimes there are arguments from one side of the debate (call it group A) that the other faction (call it group B) is wrong because they are trying to define the meaning for THEM, and they may not agree with that meaning (this is just meant to illustrate some principles, and could be a gross oversimplification, there may be more factions or groups than two, but this will hopefully suffice for the purposes here). By disagreement, that may not be in the form of acknowledging other possible connotations, but that the only possible connotations are at worst neutral and at best positive, and simply refers to indigenous Americans. IMO, this could miss the point that there could be multiple connotations. Group A is right, the word Redskin can be neutral and refer to Native American Indians, or positive as a way of honoring a noble heritage. Group B is right, the word Redskin can refer to the scalp of a murdered Native American man, woman or child. They are both right.
2) In my experience, debates such as this aren't characterized by deep etymological probing. One question I have, if there are some people (and that could include individuals that were/are/will be polled in the past/present/future) that are unaware of the possible heinous connotations for some (involving genocide), but at some point were made aware of them, would they CHANGE THEIR VOTE in the debate or poll. It sounds like polls are used in making legal judgements. In the case of a jury, we would hope that the jury was informed of the pertinent facts related to the case in making a verdict, as well as the judge being acquainted with the circumstances surrounding the case. That may not be the case with polls.
3) If scalp is a legitimate historical connotation for some, would ignorance of that connotation by others make it "permissible" to use it. BTW, I'm not suggesting there may not be many people familiar with the etymology and aware of possible multiple connotations, but have a difference of opinion in the threshold of how many people it is OK to offend, or if it is OK to offend a smaller sub-set of a population if a larger sub-set is either indifferent or actively supports it. I'd rather leave that issue aside for now, as it is a thorny one, who gets to decide how many people it is OK to offend, what is the best way to arrive at that process. This point is just directed at instances in which some are unaware of the negative connotations it holds for some.
4) Sometimes metaphors, analogies, thought experiments, can examine an issue from a different perspective. If you are having difficulty solving a puzzle, banging it together the same way over and over generally doesn't yield a solution. Lateral thinking is another term for looking at things from different perspectives.
5) The word spook has multiple connotations. Spook could mean (at least, off the top of my head) a ghost, slang/jargon for an espionage agent as part of a spy apparatus, as well as a, perhaps antiquated, racial slur. Let's say Snyder gives in (or is forced to by the league at some point down the road if they lose the appeal), and decides to honor the tradition of spycraft and it's important role in defending American liberties and freedom by calling the team the Washington Spooks. Would there be more immediate uproar and backlash from the African American community, possibly because there are many people for which that term was used as a racial slur during their lifetimes? In the scalp connotation of Redskins, there is nobody that would have been alive when that meaning was in use, and that includes Native Americans. That connotation may have been preserved mostly by historians.
6) It is possible that the scalp connotation of the word might be better known in the Native American population except for some historical realities. One is, if they didn't speak English, how would they possibly know, remember or pass along the reference. Presumably they had a word for it in their own language. More problematically, even if they did know the word, if some pockets of the Native American population were systematically murdered, they would be in a position where they were unable to pass along the scalp connotation of Redskin, being dead. It might be in history books, but sometimes darker chapters in American history can be sanitized or suppressed. I don't remember spending a lot of time in school on Japanese internment camps. Also, and I don't know the answer to this, what kind of history were Native Americans taught on reservations?
To be cont.
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matttyl
Footballguy
So the article doesn't refute that Dietz is of Indian decent. So if the name is a racial slur, then why would he continue to coach it, and 4 players continue to play for it?
squistion
Footballguy
No, it doesn't but it has been extensively refuted elsewhere, but I don't feel like taking the time searching for a link. Obviously, if he wasn't really of Native American descent, a racial slur wouldn't bother him. But the real reason is probably that the word in 1933 was not deemed as offensive at it is today.
Words and how they are perceived change over time and fall in and out of favor. At one point "colored" was the PC term for African Americans (see NAACP) however by the 70's it was considered pejorative by blacks and amounted to "fighting words" if used by a white person. In recent years many AAs now refer to themselves as a Person of Color or as People of Color, almost going full circle with the term which not that long ago was objectionable.
Another example would be "Oriental" at one time acceptable for those of Asian but now considered an insult.
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matttyl
Footballguy
Exactly, and it was trademarked back in '67 I believe, after being in use by the team for over 30 years. Don't they have to prove it was offensive then, not just now?
squistion
Footballguy
I don't know what the standard of proof is that the Patent and Trademark office requires. Adam Harstad seems pretty well versed on this subject, so perhaps he can answer it.
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Adam Harstad
Moderator
Yes, although I read a legal observer saying that she was unaware of any case of an entity trying to enforce a common law trademark that had been rescinded in federal court. The writer speculated that, depending on the judge, there's a good chance the argument would be thrown out immediately for being made in bad faith.
I did a quick search and found the link for anyone interested: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/redskins/2014/05/28/washington-redskins-mascot-controversy-trademark-daniel-snyder/9680563/
Adam Harstad
Moderator
It's important to note that the court never declared the term was UNIVERSALLY offensive. The standard they used was that 30% of the population found it offensive, and that was a large enough group to form a "substantial composite".
The defense entered a ton of letters into evidence that were written by individual Native Americans and tribes in support of the name. Even today, a lot of Native Americans really are quite proud of the name and feel it truly does honor their heritage. From a legal standpoint, though, that was irrelevant. If a "substantial composite" exists, then the presence of differing opinions became irrelevant.
It's also important to note that before the 1960s, the word "Redskin" was in common usage. Watch westerns and read newspapers from the '40s and '50s and you'll see it cropping up everywhere. Now, partly this is due to the underrepresentation of Native American voices in the national consciousness, but there's pretty compelling linguistic evidence (stemming both from common usage rates and dictionary definitions) suggesting that the term really started to be considered "beyond the pale" (if you'll forgive the pun) in the 1960s. If Washington's trademarks dated back to the '30s, '40s, and '50s instead of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, I feel quite confident that the court would have upheld them.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
Yes, they had to prove that a "substantial composite" of the affected population found the term offensive back when the trademarks were first registered (the oldest of which was in 1967). The plaintiffs did this by noting that the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) had declared opposition to the name in the late '60s and had sat down with Washington's leadership as early as 1972 to try to get them to change the name. The court determined that the NCAI represented 30% of Native Americans at the time (and that, by extension, their opposition applied to all of their members), and that 30% was a large enough number to constitute a "substantial composite". That was how the plaintiffs proved that a "substantial composite" found the name offensive when the trademark was first registered in 1967.
Although, in fairness (and without examining all of the evidence), I thought the dissenting judge had a point when he argued that the other two judges had to engage in a little bit of mental gymnastics to get to that 30% membership figure needed to establish a "substantial composite".
Yes, it would likely be a case of first impression. But I don't think any states currently have a disparagement exception to their trademark laws, so to include one now under the doctrine of unclean hands would be making things up as they went along. That's actually perfectly appropriate when it comes to common law principles -- except that the First Amendment must still be respected. To enforce some trademarks but not others based on whether they disparage certain groups is viewpoint-based discrimination, which is usually a big constitutional no-no.
There are a number of interesting legal issues involved, in any event.
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Bob Magaw
Footballguy
I've heard "hebe" (**** a case of a homophone slur?), which like a lot of slurs, started as a contraction, such as the ones from Nigeria, Nipponese, Chinese, Hispanic, etc. The British referred to Germans as "Jerry" during WW II.
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Bob Magaw
Footballguy
A lot of art, literature, comedy, TV, film uses parodies, satire, reversals to give a sense of perspective and help think outside of the social or cultural box.Yenrub said:
Sly and the Family Stone wrote a song titled, "Don't Call Me N#####, Whitey" with the verse/chorus refrain being, "Don't Call Me Whitey, N#####".
Chappelle had the skit about a blind African American that is in the KKK.
It may have been based on a film directed by Melvin Peebles (next project generally credited as creating the Blaxploitation genre) and starring Godfrey Cambridge called Watermelon Man, about a virulent white bigot who wakes up one morning to find he is black.
The Twilight Zone had episodes like this.
It can be difficult to think like the offended party (it isn't our problem, why should we worry about it?).
I'm trying to think of a reversal along the lines you suggested. For some reason, it seems that being a member of a people that were themselves subjected to genocide as recently as his parents or grandparents generation, he might be more sensitive to the protests (even if a minority) of another group subjected to genocide? What follows is not meant as a joke, just an attempt to see what a symmetrical, parallel or mirror image reversal might look like, if Snyder was the offended party.
Let's say Snyder sustains a head injury and is in a coma for a decade. While he is incapacitated, public outrage over the name has widened and intensified, they vote with their wallets, games and merchandise are boycotted, the franchise is on the brink of bankruptcy, and the interim controlling interests are forced to sell off 50% of the team, including a provision that allows the new owner to move and rename the franchise.
So the franchise formerly known as the Washington Redskins moves to Auschwitz, Germany. Once the concentration camp building industry was aborted, the owner's family had diversified the family business into natural gas distribution or commercial/residential ovens. So they name the team the Auschwitz Gas (or Ovens). Meanwhile, Snyder arises like Lazarus. Much to his horror, he is informed of the developments while he was unconscious, and takes the first jet smoking to Germany. There he tells his new fellow-owner he is outraged by the name due to the genocide-linked connotations of the new franchise name. The co-controlling ownership explains to him that they have conducted polls, and the vast majority of people associate the name with the local industry, not the historical genocide connotations. They explain to him further, that gas (or ovens) existed long before the Nazi's, and will exist long after, and it is merely due to the misguided meddling of bleeding heart liberals that have co-opted the genocide theme on the flimsy pretense of some kind of racial guilt. Lastly, they say the right to name the team was in the contract, they want to honor their family industry of gas/ovens, that's final, they will change it over their dead body, and basically, tough cookies if he is offended, he represents a minority opinion. Would Snyder feel outrage in a way that some Native Americans do now?
Let's bring it even closer to home for some. Given the global NFL expansion trend, a Japanese-born owner with dual American citizenship locates a franchise in Bataan and names it the Bayonets (assume he is not aware of some unfortunate military history connotations, and after all, the important thing is, he means/intends well). For him, the word bayonet has positive connotations. It may symbolize the American military and their protection of Democratic ideals. Maybe just a general symbol of strength in battle. Polls are conducted (and you can conduct polls and find people that don't know George Washington was the first US President), it turns out many people are unaware of the background and history of the WW II POW atrocity, and it turns out the most offended group actually represents a small number, veterans for which the Bataan Death March summons nightmarish flashbacks, having survived being starved to death and in some cases witnessing fellow soldiers being used for bayonet practice while in captivity of the Japanese forces. If they came out on the wrong end of a poll, should we dismiss their outrage? Would we feel that more deeply and profoundly if it was closer to home, and possibly involved family and friends that served in WW II. In that case, would it be more OUR PROBLEM, and enable/engage/activate our empathy circuits more strongly?
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spider321
Footballguy
I wonder how long it would have taken for Snyder to rename the team if they were named the Washington Redskins before he purchased the team. A name that by all accounts was not, and still is not offensive to the vast majority of redskins.Yenrub said:
Then, years later, the pc wussy police decide that it is a derogatory slur, start spreading this bs all over their networks, and begin to demand that it be changed because they(not the red skinned people) decide to be offended by it.
Wait, that's exactly what's happened!
Bob Magaw
Footballguy
I think the dictionary defines it as a slur as you have just used it, not about the team or historical discussions of the name as a slur, but by using it to describe contemporary Native Americans as a group.
If you wouldn't address a Native American group as Redskins in person, why reference them that way here?
* This post by itself is arguably evidence that you should probably recuse yourself from future discussions about what Native Americans might find offensive.
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Adam Harstad
Moderator
The original lawsuit declaring the name was racist (Pro Football, Inc. v. Harjo) began in 1992. Dan Snyder bought the franchise in 1999, the same year that a court originally ruled that the name was racist and voided the trademark. That was 27 years after the National Council of American Indians sent their president to sit down with the owner and president of the Redskins and discuss changing the name, and 6 years after the NCAI, which at the time represented about a third of Native Americans, issued a proclamation declaring that the name was and had always been racist and demanding a change.
Here is a chat transcript from ESPN dated
*Actually, the article is dated June 3rd and copyrighted 1999, but states the chat took place on November 17th, which either means Nov. 17 1999 (i.e. 6 months after Dan Snyder bought the team) or Nov. 17 1998 (i.e. 6 months before Dan Snyder bought the team). Either way, it clearly demonstrates that this was an ongoing issue at the time Snyder purchased the franchise.
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BigSteelThrill
Footballguy
BaBastage
Footballguy
So here's another nuance. Let's say "Redskins" is no longer a protected trademark and Snyder can't stop people from selling knockoffs.
Does that invalidate the copyright of the logo? I'm guessing "no", as the logo doesn't use the term. Seems to me that his hold upon the real value is firm.
In the meantime, I think Snyder is privately laughing with all the 'free' publicity he's getting by holding out. (It may cost him some legal fees though.)
Does that invalidate the copyright of the logo? I'm guessing "no", as the logo doesn't use the term. Seems to me that his hold upon the real value is firm.
In the meantime, I think Snyder is privately laughing with all the 'free' publicity he's getting by holding out. (It may cost him some legal fees though.)
cobalt_27
Footballguy
Completely 100% agree. In fact, given it is an obvious slur, using it in a post like this in the context and with the deliberate denigrative malice intended, it's no different than if he used the N-word to describe those with black colored skin.
Bronco Billy
Footballguy
What has Fox News got to do with anything?
More wag the dog. But like I said, I'm not going to engage in politics here. Go on without me.
fatness
Footballguy
I realize it much have felt good to type that. And changing the name of the team would make a group of Redskin fans grumpy and unhappy for awhile. There would be some public statements of giving up season tickets and some fanfare about it for a bit, then the season would start, and the grumpiness would fade and the fans would do what they always do --- root for their NFL team in Washington. That team would lose no fans in the long run.
The bolded, however, would permanently lose fans for the team. Permanently. And I've talked football with you for enough years that I know you would not be in favor of that.
If I'm wrong, and it has become that important to you to punish the team and fans for doing something you dislike for political reasons, then you've let your politics override your love of football. That would be sad, and would be your loss. NFL football is more important than politics 365 days a year.
fatness
Footballguy
Mr. Retukes
Footballguy
I would imagine that Washington would retain the trademark for the logo, as well as the lettering. Maybe even the color scheme.
Adam Harstad
Moderator
You are correct that the trademarks on the logos are all still intact, except for a few logos that also included the word "redskins" on them.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Never heard of it. The news is too busy cramming this trademark ruling down our throats.
KellysHeroes
Footballguy
Isn't there record labels trademarked with the words #####, gangsta and other offensive terms?
Adam Harstad
Moderator
There are 20 trademarks on the books for the "n-word" (both traditional n-word and the version ending in gga). 19 of them have been abandoned and declared dead, and the one exception is less than a year old and will likely soon be a dead trademark, too, once its owner realizes it's basically unenforceable. Most of them come from within the last decade, which suggests that previous trademarks containing the term have been regularly cleared off the books.
There are tons of registrations for "gangsta", "gangster", and "pimp", though I'm not sure how those registrations would be challenged as derogatory. You'd need to prove that a substantial composite considered them demeaning, but a substantial composite of whom? Of gangsters? Do a substantial composite of gangsters find the term derogatory? You would think the b-word would be pretty easily proven to be derogatory, but apparently not, because there are 792 registrations containing the word on the books.
Searching the trademark database, there is a definite trend for trademarks that double as racist slurs- under 20 registrations, almost all of them dead, few of them more than a decade old. In addition to the n-word, I also searched about a dozen other racial slurs, and "redskin" was the only one that returned a decent number of results- 40 total, though most were owned by or related to the football team.
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Bronco Billy
Footballguy
Yes there are. And despite Adam's tortured attempt to explain them all away, it's pretty clear that the the USPTO doesn't use offensiveness of words as a criteria for granting or maintaining a trademark. A search of their database makes that irrefutable.
But then this was never about taking a stand about a team name and logo that overnight became suddenly so overwhelmingly offensive that the USPTO felt obligated to take such drastic action right that instant despite it being utilized for such an extended period. And unfortunately guys like Adam, who I am 100% convinced is committed to his position that the trademark Redskins is egregiously offensive and has an a argument in solid standing - though I'd disagree, which isn't the point of my response and IMO ought to be discussed elsewhere - are being used to provide cover. Some here know that full well and are enjoying it.
