From: Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Racism Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 23:29:05 -0400
On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 01:45:47PM -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote:
> The judge said they weren't, but the Federal law in question was > established in 1946 and prohibits the gov't from registering a > trademark disparaging any race, religion or other group.
I'm quite ignorant on sports matters, but aren't most football teams privately owned?
Yes, and in all cases their names are registered as legally protected trademarks by the US gov't.
If the Redskins are privately owned, then the MOST that could happen based on the law you quoted would be they would lose their trademark on the name, right? They could still use their name, it just wouldn't be protected by law as a trademark.
I have no idea. I'm not famliiar enough with the ins and outs of trademark laws to say what kind of penalties might arise if a judge negated one. You could very well be right.
If a judge ruled that a team's name and mascot was offensive, the owners might take that as incentive to change it, too.
It's worth pointing out that such a ruling would prevent other organizations from applying for future trademark registrations based on the same (or a similar) name. I bet the activists would consider such a ruling a major victory.
Jon
Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com
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