In 2011, Erik Brunetti, an artist and entrepreneur, filed an application to register the trademark “FUCT” for use in connection with “athletic apparel, namely, shirts, pants, jackets, footwear, hats and caps; children’s and infant’s apparel, namely, jumpers, overall sleepwear, pajamas, rompers and one-piece garments.” Established in the 1990s, an era featuring the rise of streetwear labels like Supreme and Stüssy, FUCT was used in commerce by Brunetti in connection with a punk-political streetwear clothing line. The mark, according to Brunetti, is an acronym for “Friends U Can’t Trust,” to be pronounced with each letter said in turn—F-U-C-T. However, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) took issue with the fact that the mark may also be pronounced as a word with less savory connotations.

The Trademark Examiner at the USPTO rejected Brunetti’s application for FUCT, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed, under the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering “immoral[] or scandalous” marks. 15 U.S.C. §1052(a). When Brunetti challenged the “immoral[] or scandalous” bar to trademark registrations, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that this prohibition violated the First Amendment, effectively toeing the line of the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017), which found the Lanham Act’s disparagement clause of §2(a) unconstitutional. In June 2019, the Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit’s decision that the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registration of “immoral[] or scandalous” trademarks is unconstitutional. Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18-302, 2019 WL 2570622 (U.S. June 24, 2019).

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