“Does the bar on registration of disparaging marks in 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a) violate the First Amendment?”
“The government cannot refuse to register disparaging marks because it disapproves of the expressive messages conveyed by the marks. It cannot refuse to register marks because it concludes that such marks will be disparaging to others. The government regulation at issue amounts to viewpoint discrimination, and under the strict scrutiny review appropriate for government regulation of message or viewpoint, we conclude that the disparagement proscription of [15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)] is unconstitutional. Because the government has offered no legitimate interests justifying [15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)], we conclude that it would also be unconstitutional under the intermediate scrutiny traditionally applied to regulation of the commercial aspects of speech.”
