US Patent & Trademark Office Cancels Washington Redskins Trademark

The U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office cancelled the federal trademarks for the Washington Redskins after ruling that the name was "disparaging to Native Americans."

Five Native Americans petitioned the office to cancel six trademarks filed between 1967 and 1990. Under federal law, trademarks that "may disparage persons or bring them into contempt or disrepute" cannot be registered.

The office said in a ruling:

"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, in violation of Section 2(a)  of the Trademark Act of 1946, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)."

Even if the ruling is upheld, the team can still call itself the Redskins. But without the trademarks, anyone can use the Redskins name to sell merchandise. It essentially puts financial pressure on owner Dan Snyder to change the name.

The entire ruling can be read here. It includes a lengthy discussion, with expert opinions from lexicographers, about the historical origins of the words and its use as an offensive term over the past century.

The key part of the ruling says that 30% of Native Americans find the name disparaging. The committee describes this as a "substantial composite" of Native Americans, which establishes that the name is offensive:

"The record establishes that, at a minimum, approximately thirty percent of Native Americans found the term REDSKINS used in connection with respondent’s services to be disparaging at all times including 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978 and 1990. Section 2(a) prohibits registration of matter that disparages a substantial composite, which need not be a majority, of the referenced group. Thirty percent is without doubt a substantial composite. To determine otherwise means it is acceptable to subject to disparagement 1 out of every 3 individuals, or as in this case approximately 626,095 out of 1,878,285 in 1990.