The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) – for the second time in the past six months – has decided that a proposed mark incorporating the name “Trump” may not be federally registered as a trademark. Relying on the Lanham Act prohibition against registration of any mark that identifies “a particular living individual” without that person’s consent,[1] the board refused to register “Trump Too Small” for use on T-shirts and other apparel.

It is probably no coincidence that the application for the Trump Too Small mark was filed in January 2018, only months following the Supreme Court’s June 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam[2] declaring that the Lanham Act prohibition against registration of marks that “may disparage” individuals or institutions[3] violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The TTAB had refused to register the rock band name “The Slants” because it could be considered disparaging to people of Asian descent. The Tam decision also vindicated the “Redskins” mark for the Washington football team, which the TTAB had canceled in 2014 because it could offend American Indians. The Supreme Court ruled that refusing the benefits of federal trademark registration because a mark could be considered by some to be disparaging amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against speech that “expresses ideas that offend.”