Martin Schwimmer Served As Panelist At St. John’s Law School

On February 25th, Marty Schwimmer participated on a panel entitled “Challenging Offensive Marks,” organized by the St. John’s Law School Intellectual Property Law Society. The panel discussed the legal treatment of marks deemed to be scandalous or immoral or disparaging, after the Supreme Court decisions in Matal v Tam (concerning the trademark THE SLANTS) and Iancu v Brunetti (concerning the trademark FUCT). The two decisions held that the Lanham Act’s prohibition of “scandalous or immoral” or “disparaging” was unconstitutional. The panel also discussed steps the owner of a “controversial” trademark might take if it wished to “retire” such a trademark (as the owners of the AUNT JEMIMA and UNCLE BEN’S trademarks have recently done) without abandoning its rights to a third party.