The US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has revoked the trademark of Washington, DC’s football team—the Redskins—after a challenge by five Native Americans who claimed the term is disparaging, offensive, and dehumanizing.
The decision by the TTAB agreed that the team’s trademarks were disparaging to Native Americans at the time they were registered, a violation of the Trademark Act of 1946.
To illustrate the use of the trademarks in question, the Board included images in their decision. Here is a selection of those images:
The decision included canceling two logos from 1972, one featuring a prominent profile of a Native American:
… and one including that image as part of a spear.
The trademarks for the “typed drawings” of the word “Redskins” and “Redskinettes” and “Washington Redskins” were also canceled in this decision.
