I woke up
this morning to some wonderful news: the United States Patent and Trademark
Office canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name the Washington
R*dskins. This is kind of big news. I saw it on Twitter, and I guess the
Washington Post has an article about it, but I’m still not reading them because
they troll or full on hate women. Know who doesn’t? ThinkProgress. Travis
Waldron has a post up over there. Go
there, read it.
The
United States Patent and Trademark Office found the name is “disparaging to
Native Americans” and therefore can’t be trademarked under federal law because
it prohibits the protection of offensive and disparaging language. Two
immediate thoughts: 1. It took how long for you guys to figure this out? And 2.
Someone alert the rightwing, a racist’s freedom of speech isn’t getting special
protection so clearly the first amendment is in danger. Just kidding, but
really wait for them to descend all over this.
This ruling
stems from a case brought against the team by plaintiff Amanda Blackhorse on
Wednesday. The U.S. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said in its opinion:
“We decided, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations
must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the
respective times they were registered.”
No shit.
Obviously, the plaintiff is happy about the ruling. Of course, in 1992, the
U.S. PTO rescinded the team’s trademark protections, but that was overturned
due to a technicality, but that is supposed to be fixed this time around. I’m
going to wait and see what happens before we get too excited. I mean the ruling
could be reversed again. Or if it holds, this doesn’t mean the name changes.
Instead people can bootleg the shit out of Washington merchandise. I’m also
thinking this will piss off other owners because they are going to lose money
too. Oh, capitalism, we might get a name change yet. Not because it is the
right thing to do, but because white men are going to lose money. How did we
not think of this before?
