(Sorrell,Andrew,5962326) W6 Practice Case Brief
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Law
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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Sorrell, Andrew, M (5962326)
Case Citation:
Iancu v. Brunetti
,
588 L. Ed. (D.C. 2019).
Parties:
Iancu
, Defendant Brunetti
, Plaintiff Facts: Brunetti claims his first amendment rights were violated due to a denial of the trademark he requested that read "FUCT."
Procedural History: Brunetti sought to register a trademark with the United States patent and trademark office that read "FUCT." After review of the trademark request, according to the Lanham Act, the United States patent and trademark office denied the request on the grounds that
the term was highly offensive and vulgar. After receiving the denial, Brunetti appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals, claiming that Iancu, the director of the United States patent and trademark office, violated his first amendment rights with the denial. The United States Court of Appeals reversed the decision, granting Brunetti the right to his trademark
request. Iancu requested that the United States Supreme Court review the case; upon review, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals.
Issues: Issue 1: Whether the Lanham Act’s guidelines on immoral or scandalous matters violate citizens’
first amendment rights?
Holdings: Issue 1:
Yes. The current guidelines within the Lanham Act provide a viewpoint-based decision,
allowing the PTO office to deny a decision based on accepted society views.
Reasoning: Issue 1: Does the Lanham Act’s guidance on immoral or scandalous matters violate citizens First Amendment rights?
Majority. The court found that the current guidelines of the Lanham Act did violate citizens’ first amendment rights. The court claims that if you provided the trademark registration bar with viewpoint-based guidelines to follow, then that bar is unconstitutional and possibly biased. The current guidelines have led the PTO to apply the guidelines in discriminatory ways, allowing them to reject requests that were offensive by moral standards and ones that weren’t with accepted society views. This decision does not change the guidelines on neutral viewpoints within society, such as lewd, sexually explicit, or profane marks, but rather urges Congress to enact new guidelines for trademark and patent requests.
Concurring (Alito, J.). Discrimination violates First Amendment rights. Courts cannot simply rule in favor of discrimination, so therefore Congress should adopt a narrower set of guidelines that provide a ban on registration marks that include vulgar terms.
Concurring (Breyer, J.). Throughout scientific research studies, it has been proven that vulgar words provide psychological and emotional effects on people in different ways. The government can combat this by denying federal trademark requests, but it needs the law to back the stance. Government law changes could help ban highly obscene words in public, which could
help protect our children from viewing them.
Concurring (Roberts, J.). The rights are not being stripped away from citizens’ when trademarks are being refused by the government, but rather the government is supporting the obscene, vulgar, or profane expression. Citizens’ free speech rights are not being restricted, nor are the citizens being punished. Concurring (Sotomayor, J.). The current guidelines that permit the PTO to make decisions on requests based on viewpoints do provide a discrimination bias. The regulations that govern PTO decisions can be interpreted in many ways; basically, it’s all viewpoints. Governments have the right to not have interest in approving trademark requests that include obscene, vulgar, or profane marks.
Decision: Affirmed. The current guidelines do violate first amendment rights as they do not provide a narrow set of guidelines for decisions but rather provide a way for discrimination based on viewpoint-based decisions.
Comment: This case gives a great example of a guideline that is broad in nature, one that prevents people from performing their job without discrimination. It was proven in this case that the Lanham Act guidelines need to be changed from the current state to a narrower set to prevent discrimination.
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