An activist wanted to patent a Trump-related slogan. However, the Supreme Court has banned the plan.
Political activist and lawyer Steve Elster planned to trademark the phrase “Trump Too Small” in the United States. According to reports from CNN, the Supreme Court of the United States has now prohibited the man from doing so. The main reason for this is said to be the direct mention of the name of the former US president.
According to CNN reports, lawyer Steve Elster tried to officially register the slogan as a trademark for use on T-shirts in 2018. In his trademark application, Elster is said to have argued that the proposed trademark “is intended to convey that some features of President Trump and his policies are small.”
The Supreme Court has now rejected the attempt to patent the phrase “Trump Too Small.” The lawyer and activist had previously filed a lawsuit claiming that the ban on trademark registration violated the First Amendment, CNN reports.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects the basic rights of Americans. These include freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech for all US citizens.
The court based its decision on the fact that federal law prohibits the registration of a trademark with the name of a living person without their consent. As CNN further reports, the US Patent and Trademark Office refused to register the trademark because the use of the name “Trump” could be perceived by the public as a reference to the former president. NBC also reports this.
“Our courts have long recognized that trademarks containing names can be limited. And those name limitations served established principles. That history and tradition is sufficient to conclude that the Name Clause – a content-based but viewpoint-neutral trademark limitation – is consistent with the First Amendment,” the judge also wrote on the Supreme Court’s side, referring to a provision of the federal trademark law at issue in the case.
The dispute between the former president and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio dates back to an altercation during the 2016 Republican primaries, when the senator joked about the size of Trump’s hands before a debate, saying, “You know what they say about men with small hands.”
Trump responded defiantly in the debate, holding out his hands to the Republican crowd and insisting that Rubio’s claim that “something else has to be small” was false. “I guarantee you there is no problem,” Trump also said, according to CNN.
The debate was followed by numerous justifications from Trump and headlines in which Trump assured that he was “well equipped.”
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