Supreme Court Grants Review For Free Speech Case Involving ‘Trump Too Small’ Trademark
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a free speech case involving a trademark that harkens back to a crude joke Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio made at former President Donald Trump’s expense during the 2016…
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a free speech case involving a trademark that harkens back to a crude joke Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio made at former President Donald Trump’s expense during the 2016 election.
The case, Vidal v. Elster, stems from a T-shirt made by Steve Elster with the words “Trump too small,” a reference to Rubio’s joke about Trump’s “small hands” during a campaign rally in 2016, where he told the crowd “you know what they say about guys with small hands.” The United States Patent & Trademark Office declined to register Elster’s mark under Section 2(c) of the Lanham Act, which bans the registration of trademarks that include “a name, portrait, or signature identifying a particular living individual except by his written consent.”
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed