The case turns upon the question whether the anti-disparagement clause of the Lanham Act, section 2(a) is considered an abridgment of freedom of speech. Simon Tam, having been a victim of racial spurs being a Chinese-American, decided to call his band “The Slants”, a traditional derogatory name used to insult Asians. He formed the band in 2006 not just for the sake of playing music but also for expressing his views on discrimination against Asian Americans. He decided to choose that name to turn a racial spur into a point of pride. Simon Tam actually approached a tradition of reappropriation or reclamation. In sociology, reappropriation/reclamation is the cultural process by which members of a minority group reclaim terms that were previously …show more content…
On the federal level, the Lanham Act of 1946 is the main legislation. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the federal body in charge of reviewing and registering trademarks. It is the primary federal trademark statute of law in the United States. That said, if any business or person wants to register a trademark, patent, copyright, domain name or business name, they have to submit an application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which will assign an examining attorney to study the application and pass on a decision of either approving or refusing the application. An examiner’s decision may be appealed to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board within the USPTO. A Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision may be appealed to a federal court. Trademarks and service marks are very important as they serve to distinguish a company’s or a person’s products or services from those of others. “A trademark distinguishes the source of a particular good or service, whether that is accomplished by a trade name, packaging, logo, or other distinguishing mark. When the law protects a trademark, it grants to the holder of the mark a limited monopoly: No one else may use that mark without the holder’s permission.” (McAdams, 2015). Once a trademark is registered with the USPTO, the rights of a trademark’s holder are not merely protected on a national level but on an international level as well under the Paris Convention, more formally called the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which is a treaty that provides protection for trademarks. 174 countries, including the United States, are parties to that treaty. (McAdams,