The US Supreme Court affirmed Thursday that a citizen could not register the trademark “Trump too small”, with sexual connotations vigorously contested by the person concerned, confirming the right of a living person to the use of his own name.
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This clause of the trademark registration law does not contravene the First Amendment of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression, affirms the Court, annulling the appeal decision.
“We conclude that a tradition of restricting the registration of names as trademarks has coexisted with the First Amendment and that the names clause is part of this tradition,” explains the Court in its decision.
The case dates back to 2018, when a California lawyer, Steve Elster, was refused by the agency responsible for the trademark registry the right to file the formula “Trump too small”, on the grounds that the law required the agreement of living persons to use their name.
But justice, in the name of freedom of expression and the right to criticize “public figures”, had ruled in favor of the lawyer, who wanted to print it on t-shirts and hats, with a view to criticizing the action of the Republican president.
The federal administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the refusal to register the formula in the trademark register did not prohibit its use, but only deprived it of the protections linked to property law. intellectual.
The formula in question is inspired by a remark that remains famous, during the debates between candidates in the 2016 Republican primary. One of them, Senator Marco Rubio, noting that Donald Trump had small hands, blurted out: “And You know what they say about guys with small hands?”
He thus responded to the taunts of the billionaire, familiar with attacks on the size or corpulence of his opponents, who often referred to him as “little Marco”.
Stung, Donald Trump assured that he had “no problem” of any size.
He also called pornographic actress Stormy Daniels “horse-faced”, with whom he denies having had a brief extramarital affair in 2006. The latter in return nicknamed him “Little Thing”, in reference to his male anatomy.
