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LEGAL & SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS OF BUSINESS
'The Slants' in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. However, the same was
rejected by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office stating that such name if opposing the
provision of 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a) of the Lanham Act, which prohibits the registration of any
trademarks which have the possibility of disparaging an individual or group(Liotti, 2006).
Simon Tam then has applied to the Supreme Court against the decision of the Patent and
Trademark Office stating that the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected their
trademark plea by interpreting the name of the band 'the slant' as a term which is used to
recognize the people belongs to Asian descent (Npr.org, 2017). However, the band, on the
other hand, claimed that they had no such intention to refer to those people of Asian descent
and they have used the name out of their perspective that they want to re-apposite the word
into something constructive and aimed to empower the same in a positive sense. Therefore,
they have claimed that they have no intent to use such words as a disgrace to any particular
community. However, the PTO while interpreting the same used unreliable sources such as
Urban Dictionary to justify their claims and it has been alleged by Tam that they have
ignored the survey data and also did not take the advice of linguistics experts while
interpreting the term (Matal v. Tam). They have further did not take into consideration the
legal announcements of the leaders of Asian American community leaders while taking the
decision not to grant a trademark over the term (Npr.org, 2017).
The Federal Circuit Court heard the trial of the case at through en banc method and
held that the decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office for rejecting the
applicant to grant patent over the name 'the Slant' considering the breach of the provision of
15 U.S.C. § 1052(a) of the Lanham Act is held to be completely unconstitutional (Phillips,
2008). The court further held that such denial is through violation of the rule envisaged under
the category of freedom of speech and expression of the United States Constitution (Levy,
2017). Such right of the citizens of the USA is protected by the First Amendment to

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Legal & Social Environments of Business

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