Posted on 06/18/2014 10:59:40 AM PDT by Cheerio
In what some see as the first step to forcing the Washington Redskins football team to change their name, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday cancelled six federal trademarks of the team name because it's “disparaging” to Native Americans.
“Petitioners have shown by a preponderance of the evidence that a substantial composite of Native Americans found the term REDSKINS to be disparaging,” said the decision.
Fans, however, won’t see any immediate change — even if Daniel Snyder’s team eventually loses in court. That’s because all the order will do is eliminate the trademark the team has on merchandise.
The Redskins are expected to appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Outrageous.
Nazi Germany did it! If I were the owner I’d pull the team out of there.
Coercive Federal government enforcing its politically correct preferences. Beware.
Is Harry Reid a lawyer? I just read that it’ll take years for this to wind through the courts and in the meantime the Redskins will be able to sue for trademark infringement.
No, it doesn’t force them to do anything but it does mean that anyone and I do mean anyone can use their logo an trademark without paying the team one thin dime... so effectively they and the NFL will lose millions of dollars of revenue a year. This is nothing more than extortion.
There is no part of government liberals will not abuse to get their way.
Please, oh please change the name.
I like the sound of the San Antonio Redskins myself.
Reid should be forced to change his name to something more accurate.
Harry Reid should be forced to change his name to Prisoner #156472.
I’m Native American and I’m not offended. Although I am of German and Swedish heritage on Mom’s side and Russian, Russian Jew and Serbian (my last name is of Kosovo Serbian origin) on Dad’s, I was born here so I consider myself Native American.
We could name the team after him-—The Dingettes!
You legally can’t do this.
Registered Trademarks including its color and font is legally protected.
Same reason they can’t change there name to “Apple” or “IBM”
Names that fit: change “dingy” to “a**hole”.
“I like the sound of the San Antonio Redskins myself.”
I prefer the San Antonio Bandits. There logo would be the hat from Rodeo San Antonio.
If they are forced to drop the name “Redskins” then drop it and don’t replace it with anything. If they can’t be the Washington Redskins football team then just be the Washington football team. That makes the statement that there is one, and only one name for that football team and they’re not allowed to use it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.