The Washington NFL team is once again appealing the cancellation of their “Washington Redskins” trademark, this time using the defense that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has fostered arbitrary enforcement since it has granted trademarks to other names that the team believes are “racist, or misogynistic, vulgar, or otherwise offensive.”
The filing, which was first reported by The Washington Post, also states that the trademark cancellation violated the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague.
Last year, the U.S. PTO canceled six trademarks for “Washington Redskins,” ruling that the name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and therefore cannot be trademarked due to federal law that prohibits the protection of offensive or disparaging language.
“We decide, 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,” the U.S. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote in its opinion in July 2014.
Owner Dan Snyder and the Washington team has already appealed the ruling once, but in July a federal judge affirmed the cancellation. Over the summer, it was revealed that the NFL is bankrolling Washington’s legal defense of the trademark.
“To our knowledge, of the over three million trademarks registered since 1870, no registration has ever been retroactively cancelled for being disparaging,” the appeal, filed on October 30, read. “The Redskins are the first and only. The name is over 80 years old, and the registrations nearly 50.”
The appeal includes a list of many name brands that have been trademarked by the U.S. PTO that Washington believes could be considered offensive:
- TAKE YO PANTIES OFF clothing
- DANGEROUS NEGRO shirts
- SLUTSSEEKER dating services
- DAGO SWAGG clothing
- DUMB BLONDE beer
- TWATTY GIRL cartoons
- BAKED BY A NEGRO bakery goods
- BIG TITTY BLEND coffee
- RETARDIPEDIA website
- MIDGET-MAN condoms and inflatable sex dolls
- JIZZ underwear
- TEENSDOPORN.COM
- MILFSDOPORN.COM
- THUG PORN
- GHETTO BOOTY
- BOUND GANGBANGS
- SHANK THE B!T@H board game
- CRACKA AZZ SKATEBOARDS
- ANAL FANTASY COLLECTION
- KLITORIS sex toys
- HOT OCTOPUSS anti-premature ejaculation creams
- OL GEEZER wines
- EDIBLE CROTCHLESS GUMMY PANTIES lingerie
- WTF WORK? online forum
- MILF WEED bags
- GRINGO STYLE SALSA
- MAKE YOUR OWN DILDO
- GRINGO BBQ
- CONTEMPORARY NEGRO apparel
- F’D UP apparel
- WHITE TRASH REBEL apparel
- I LOVE VAGINA apparel
- WHITE GIRL WITH A BOOTY apparel
- PARTY WITH SLUTS apparel
- CRIPPLED OLD BIKER BASTARDS
- DICK BALLS apparel
- REDNECK ARMY apparel
- OH! MY NAPPY HAIR shampoos
- REFORMED WHORES musical bands
- LAUGHING MY VAGINA OFF entertainment
- NAPPY ROOTS records
- BOOTY CALL sex aids
- BOYS ARE STUPID, THROW ROCKS AT THEM wallets
- DUMB BLONDE hair products
Washington concluded its list of objectionable trademarks by stating, “Word limits prevent us from listing more.”
“It is a desperate attempt to justify the continued use of a dictionary defined slur,” Joel Barkin, the vice president for communications at Oneida Nation, told ThinkProgress in a statement on behalf of the Change the Mascot campaign.
Barkin added that the U.S. PTO made “civil rights history” last year when it ruled that the racial slur “Washington Redskins” was not entitled to federal copyright protections or taxpayer resources due to the “indisputable fact” that the name is disparaging to Native Americans.