2023-06-05 16:06:15
UNITED STATES
Supreme Court takes up scabrous anti-Trump T-shirt case
The clothes feature the words “TRUMP TOO SMALL”. The Supreme Court will have to decide whether the formula can be registered in the Trademark Registry without the consent of the former American president.
Published
The Supreme Court will have to decide whether the formula can be registered in the Trademark Registry without the consent of the former American president.
trumptoosmall.com
The formula “TRUMP TOO SMALL”, which translates as “Trump too small” and has a strong sexual connotation in English, can it be registered in the trademark register without the consent of the former American president? The venerable Supreme Court of the United States agreed on Monday to take up this apparently trivial question, but which undermines the freedom to criticize public officials and the prohibition of defamation.
“And you know what they say about guys with small hands…”
The file comes from a Californian lawyer who, in 2018, wanted to file this “mark” in order to affix it to T-shirts and hats criticizing the action of Donald Trump in the White House. In his motion, Steve Elster called the formula “political commentary”.
The formula was inspired by a famous joke made during the debates between candidates for the 2016 Republican primary. Senator Marco Rubio, noting that Donald Trump had small hands, had dropped: “And you know what we say guys with small hands…”
The agency in charge of the trademark register had refused Steve Elster’s request, on the grounds that the law requires having the agreement of living people to register their name. The lawyer then turned to justice. A court and then a Court of Appeal agreed with him, in the name of the defense of freedom of expression and the right to criticize “public persons”.
The federal authorities then asked the Supreme Court to intervene. In a court document, they argued that the refusal to register this formula in the trademark register did not prohibit its use but only deprived it of the protections linked to intellectual property law.
Comparable debates have already gone back to the Supreme Court which, in 2019, had for example ruled in favor of the designer of a clothing line called “FUCT”, which the authorities refused to register because of its vulgarity.
(AFP)
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