June 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court barred on Thursday a federal trademark for the phrase "Trump Too Small" - an irreverent criticism of former President Donald Trump - rejecting a California lawyer's claim that the trademark denial violated his constitutional free speech rights.
The justices unanimously overturned a lower court's decision that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's rejection of Steve Elster's application to register the trademark to exclusively use it on T-shirts violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
The case centered on a provision in a 1946 federal trademark law that bans the registration of any trademark that uses a living individual's name without their written consent. At issue was whether free speech protections for criticism of public figures outweigh the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's concerns over Trump's rights, as the lower court found.
The justices unanimously agreed that the "names clause" provision at issue is constitutional, but differed in their reasons for reaching that conclusion.
"Restrictions on trademarking names have a long history," conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the justices. "Such restrictions have historically been grounded in the notion that a person has ownership over his own name, and that he may not be excluded from using that name by another's trademark."
Biden's administration had asserted that the law is a permissible condition on a government benefit and does not illegally stifle free speech because it bars registrations regardless of the viewpoint conveyed. Elster argued that allowing public figures to trademark their own positive messages while precluding registrations that criticize them verges on viewpoint discrimination.
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