Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. ___, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Matal v. Tam is a landmark Supreme Court decision at the intersection of free speech and trademark law.
Does the Lanham Act's disparagement clause, which prohibits the federal registration of trademarks that may disparage persons, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment?
The government may not engage in viewpoint discrimination when regulating private speech. Trademarks are private, not government, speech; registration is not a government endorsement, nor is the trademark registry a government subsidy program or a limited public forum that permits viewpoint-based exclusions. Viewpoint-based burdens on private speech are presumptively unconstitutional and invalid under any applicable level of scrutiny.
Yes. The Lanham Act's disparagement clause is unconstitutional because it impermissibly discriminates based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment. The judgment of the Federal Circuit was affirmed.
Matal v. Tam is a cornerstone First Amendment case on viewpoint discrimination and limits on government control of private speech within a federal benefits scheme. It clarifies that trademark registration is not government speech and cannot be conditioned on ideological neutrality or civility. The ruling reshaped trademark practice by forbidding the PTO from denying registration based on the expressive viewpoint of a mark and influenced subsequent decisions, such as Iancu v. Brunetti, which invalidated the Lanham Act's "immoral or scandalous" bar. For law students, Tam provides a clear template for analyzing government-speech claims, distinguishing subsidies from neutral benefit programs, and applying viewpoint neutrality to content-based regulations.