The Washington Redskins Look to Connect Their Trademark Battle to Portland Band the Slants

Legal imbroglios make strange and often unwanted bedfellows.

For over five years, Portland dance-rock band the Slants fought to trademark its name. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had refused, on the grounds that the moniker violates a statute in the 1946 Lanham Act against trademarks considered "scandalous, disparaging or immoral."

See, the band is Asian-American, and because of that, the phrase "slant" takes on a derogatory connotation—never mind that the whole point is to reclaim a slur and drain its power to offend.

Anyway, it's been a long, complicated journey for the band, whose attempts to appeal the original decision came up empty until December, when a federal circuit court ruled that the provision in the Lanham Act used to block their trademark is a violation of the First Amendment. It was a major victory for the band—their first.

But the patent office has still not issued a trademark, and on April 20 the patent office asked the Supreme Court to consider the case.

And according to The Washington Post, the embattled Washington Redskins hope the ruling can help their own trademark fight.

In case you've spent the last few decades under a rock in outer space, the NFL team's name and logo has long been considered offensive to Native Americans.

Last July, a federal judge ordered the cancellation of the team's trademark registrations, citing the part of the Lanham Act that has since been deemed unconstitutional in the Slants ruling.

The team appealed the July decision—and now the Post reports the Redskins organization is hoping to piggyback off the appeals court's ruling in the Slants' case and go straight to the high court.

The team's argument for essentially connecting the two cases is that it "would allow the justices to consider the question of the Lanham Act provision's unconstitutionality 'presented in a wider range of circumstances,' as well as to 'resolve intertwined, equally important questions, and avoid piecemeal review,'" the Post reports.

The Redskins have been watching the Slants' case closely for a while, something that has left the band feeling conflicted. In December, Slants leader Simon Tam told WW that he considers the Redskins an "unlikely and unwanted" ally.

Willamette Week