Washington Redskins lose key legal battle over their brand trademark
The Washington Redskins football team has lost its biggest legal battle surrounding its much debated logo after a federal judge ordered the cancellation of the NFL team’s trademark registration ruling that the name and logo might denigrate Native Americans.
The decision over the trademark, which has been opposed for decades by Native American activists who call the name disparaging, is a huge setback for the team’s legal and public relations battle over the past year.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee’s decision reaffirms the decision taken by the federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board last year which declared that the team’s moniker is offensive to Native Americans and therefore ineligible for federal trademark protection.
The team’s argument that the majority of Native American’s had no objection to the name when trademarks were granted between 1967 and 1990 was rejected by Lee who questioned the decision over the choice of name in the first instance. In his ruling he pointed out that, seventy years prior to the first registration of the team’s name, the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s 1898 definition of the word ‘redskin’ was defined as “often contemptuous”.
The case against the Redskins trademark has been pursued by five Native American activists, including Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo who often leads protests against the team outside any stadium the team plays in.
The cancellation will not officially take place until the team has exhausted all appeals in the Federal Courts. Redskins President Bruce Allen said in a statement that the team “will win on appeal as the facts and the law are on the side of our franchise that has proudly used the name Washington Redskins for more than 80 years.”
While the team could continue to use the Redskins name, a cancellation of its trademarks could have a massive effect on its branding and advertising which would not have any legal benefits that would protect it against copycat entrepreneurs.