In 2004 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed to register Heeb as the name of a magazine covering Jewish culture. Four years later, the PTO refused to register Heeb as the name of a clothing line conceived by the magazine’s publishers, because the term is “a highly disparaging reference to the Jewish people.”
Such puzzling inconsistency is par for the course at the PTO, explains Jacob Sullum. Since 1946, the PTO has been charged with blocking registration of trademarks that “may disparage…persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” But a case the Supreme Court will hear today could put an end to that vain, vague, and highly subjective enterprise, which sacrifices freedom of speech on the altar of political correctness.
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