It isn’t every day that we see the Supreme Court take on a case that sits at the intersection of trademark law and the First Amendment. But that intersection has been getting more and more attention in the last few years, largely as a result of increased protests

over the use of offensive or demeaning names by popular sports teams. Perhaps the

most famous dispute involves the National Football League’s Washington Redskins,

a name that many say is an affront to Native Americans. The Redskins’s use of that

name, and the protection of the exclusive use of the name through U.S. trademark

law, not only means that the team has a unique identifier, protected by federal law,

that tells all who see it that “The Redskins” refers to the NFL team in Washington,

D.C., it also means that the team can license the use of the name and capitalize on

merchandising worth millions of dollars.

But if the name is offensive, should

the U.S. government extend protection

of it through a trademark? That’s

the question now before the Supreme

Court, in a case brought not by the

billion-dollar NFL franchise, but by a

singer named Simon Tam.