Trademark law and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution seem from the outset to have a complex and conflicted relationship. Indeed, while protection of the right to freedom of expression can encourage the creation and dissemination of ideas and information, government protection of trademarks can suppress and punish expression that incorporates another’s registered trademark.  Even further, trademark law sometimes prevents registration of signs that would otherwise be considered speech protected by the First Amendment, with numerous and strict conditions on what may or may not be registered.

In this episode, Lisa P. Ramsey, Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, who teaches in the areas of trademark law and intellectual property in general, will explain the interactions between free expression and trademark law. She notably talks about two recent groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court cases right on point, namely Matal v. Tam (2017) and Iancu v. Brunetti (2019) about the right for the government to deny trademark registration to certain categories of trademarks—potentially disparaging marks and immoral or scandalous marks, respectively.

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