Iancu v. Brunetti
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 24, 2019 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 24, 2019
- Term
- October Term 2018
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Kagan
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. Two Terms ago, in Matal v. Tam , 582 U. S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 1744, 198 L.Ed.2d 366 (2017), this Court invalidated the Lanham Act's bar on the registration of "disparag[ing]" trademarks. 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a). Although split between two non-majority opinions, all Members of the Court agreed that the provision violated the First Amendment because it discriminated on the basis of viewpoint. Today we consider a First Amendment challenge to a neighboring provision of the Act, prohibiting the registration of "immoral[ ] or scandalous" trademarks. Ibid. We hold that this provision infringes the First Amendment for the same reason: It too disfavors certain ideas. I Respondent Erik Brunetti is an artist and entrepreneur who founded a clothing line that uses the trademark FUCT. According to Brunetti, the mark (which functions as the clothing's brand name) is pronounced as four letters, one after the other: F-U-C-T. See Brief for Respondent 1. But you might read it differently and, if so, you would hardly be alone. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5 (describing the brand name as "the equivalent of [the] past participle form of a well-known word of profanity"). That common perception caused difficulties for Brunetti when he tried to register his mark with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Under the Lanham Act, the PTO administers a federal…
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