[JURIST] The Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL) [official websites] on Monday filed a petition [text, PDF] with the US Supreme Court [official website] asking it to review a ruling [opinion, PDF] that upheld the cancellation of the Redskins trademark. The Redskins requested that the court not consider the case unless it also takes up a similar disparaging trademark case involving a band named “The Slants” [official website]. In December, after the USPTO [official website] rejected The Slants’ name as being disparaging, a federal court ruled [JURIST report] that a provision of the 1946 Lanham Act [LII materials], which holds that trademarks could be cancelled if they “may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute,” was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. In the petition, the Redskins asked that the court not consider this provision’s constitutionality until after their appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website], but also mentioned that if the court were to take up the Slants case, then it should hear the Redskins case as well since it is an essential and vital compliment to the Slants case.

There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding disparaging trademarks and names over the past few years due to the Redskins case. In August 2014 the Washington Redskins filed an appeal [JURIST report] in federal court to challenge a June ruling by the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board of the USPTO that found the name “Redskins” is “disparaging of Native Americans.” The Redskins faced a similar ruling by the Board in 1999, which was later overturned on appeal. The August complaint marked the beginning of new litigation [Think Process report], but many of the issues from earlier cases remained unchanged. In June 2014 the USPTO announced that it would cancel six trademark registrations [JURIST report] belonging to the Washington Redskins. Administrative trademark judge Karen Kuhlke cancelled trademarks associated with the team’s name, logo and the name of their cheerleading squad. The Washington Redskins’ name was criticized [JURIST report] by UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya, who called in April of last year for the team to change their name out of respect for the “historical and cultural legacy of the Native Americans in the US.”