FUCT Clothing Brand Wins Supreme Court Case on ‘Scandalous’ Trademarks

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The FUCT clothing brand has scored a major win in regards to the previously issued ban on the company’s trademark due to its name, which had been seen as “immoral” or “scandalous.”

FUCT Clothing Brand

It was a victory for the streetwear apparel business — founded in 1990 by designer Erik Brunetti — and the First Amendment as the Supreme Court ruled that the brand name should be allowed for a federal trademark. Brunetti had plans to register the trademark, but the Patent and Trademark Office had refused to do so.

The aforementioned Office cited a provision of the Lanham Act that prohibited the registration of trademarks, which has been used in the past for names that “consist of or comprise immoral or scandalous matter.” Brunetti pushed back, no ting that this part of the trademark law was unconstitutional as it violated the First Amendment.

There were oral arguments in April that saw justices express how the word could be seen as offensive by some, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that “our decision does not prevent Congress from adopting a more carefully focused statute that precludes the registration of marks containing vulgar terms that play no real part in the expression of ideas.”

“Our decision is not based on moral relativism but on the recognition that a law banning speech deemed by government officials to be ‘immoral’ or ‘scandalous’ can easily be exploited for illegitimate ends,” Alito added.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2019/06/fuct-clothing-brand/.

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