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Article
Beyond Trademarks and Offense: Tam and the Justices’ Evolution on Free Speech
UF Law Faculty Publications
  • Clay Calvert, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2017
OCLC FAST subject heading
Intellectual property
Abstract

In Matal v. Tam , the Supreme Court threw out the “disparagement clause” of the Lanham Act, the federal trademark law, because trademarks are private speech and thus regulating them based on government determinations of offensiveness violates the First Amendment. The solid outcome here contrasts with the narrow, incremental results in some other recent First Amendment cases that reached the Court.

Citation Information
Clay Calvert, Beyond Trademarks and Offense: Tam and the Justices’ Evolution on Free Speech, 2017 Cato Sup. Ct. Rev. 25