Dive Brief:
-
The United States Patent and Trademark Office Wednesday canceled the team’s trademark registration for the name “Redskins” with a finding that is is “disparaging to Native Americans.” Federal trademark law bars registration of trademarks that “disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.”
-
The case was brought before the office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on behalf of five Native Americans, the second case of its kind.
-
The ruling affects six Washington Redskins trademarks that contain the word “Redskin.”
Dive Insight:
Controversy about team names invoking Native Americans has been brewing for decades now, and most recently has been heightened by comments by President Barack Obama, several lawmakers, prominent sports broadcasters, and many others.
Perhaps one of the most important implications of the patent office's trademark ruling for retail and retail licensing can be found at one of Washington D.C.’s public high schools, where students asked in October that the principle ban clothing bearing the team’s logo because of what they called its racism. So far, team owner Dan Snyder has vehemently defended the name, saying it has been in place for more than 80 years, a line of reasoning that has been deemed fairly weak among its critics.
With young people rejecting the name, however, and more people refusing to buy or wear merchandise, the name may simply fall out of favor even more widely on its own. And if the team can no longer demand licensing fees from retailers because of the trademark ruling, it may want to choose something new to revive those lucrative deals.