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Nature of Suit Code: 840
Nature of Suit: Trademark
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Decided May 15, 2009 

Reissued May 27, 2009 

No. 03-7162 

PRO FOOTBALL, INC., 

APPELLEE

v. 

SUZAN S. HARJO, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 99cv01385) 

Philip J. Mause and Jeffrey J. Lopez were on the briefs 

for appellants. 

Robert L. Raskopf and Sanford I. Weisburst were on the 

brief for appellee. 

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, TATEL, and HENDERSON, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

USCA Case #03-7162 Document #1180994 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 1 of 10
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 TATEL, Circuit Judge: At bottom, this case concerns 

whether various trademarks related to the Washington 

Redskins football team disparage Native Americans within 

the meaning of the Lanham Trademark Act, § 2, 15 U.S.C. § 

1052(a). But that question has since been overshadowed by 

the defense of laches, the basis on which the district court first 

entered judgment for the Redskins six years ago. We 

reversed that decision, finding that the district court had 

misapplied the law of laches to the particular facts of the case. 

Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo (Harjo II), 415 F.3d 44, 50 (D.C. 

Cir. 2005). On remand, the district court reconsidered the 

evidence in light of our instructions and again ruled for the 

team. Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo (Harjo III), 567 F. Supp. 2d 

46, 62 (D.D.C. 2008). Now appealing that decision, the 

Native Americans who originally petitioned for cancellation 

of the mark argue only that the district court improperly 

assessed evidence of prejudice in applying laches to the facts 

at issue. Limited to that question, we see no error and affirm. 

I. 

Because previous opinions have already described the 

background of this case at length, see Harjo II, 415 F.3d at 

46–47; Harjo III, 567 F. Supp. 2d at 48–51, we provide only 

the essentials. Appellants, seven Native Americans, filed a 

1992 action before the Patent and Trademark Office seeking 

cancelation of six Redskins trademarks that were, they 

argued, impermissibly disparaging towards members of their 

ethnic group. Pro-Football, the Redskins’ corporate entity 

and the owner of the marks, argued to the Trademark Trial 

and Appeal Board that its long-standing use of the name, 

combined with petitioners’ delay in bringing the case, called 

for application of laches, an equitable defense that applies 

where there is “(1) lack of diligence by the party against 

whom the defense is asserted, and (2) prejudice to the party 

asserting the defense,” Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 

USCA Case #03-7162 Document #1180994 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 2 of 10
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536 U.S. 101, 121–22 (2002) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The TTAB disagreed, observing that petitioners 

asserted an interest in preventing “a substantial segment of the 

population” from being held up “to public ridicule,” and that 

insofar as that interest reached “beyond the personal interest 

being asserted by the present petitioners,” laches was 

inappropriate. Harjo v. Pro Football Inc., 30 U.S.P.Q. 2d 

1828, 1831 (TTAB 1994). Finding on the merits that the 

marks were indeed disparaging, the TTAB cancelled them, 

see Harjo v. Pro Football Inc., 50 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1705, 1749 

(TTAB 1999), depriving Pro-Football of the ability to pursue 

infringers. 

 Pro-Football then exercised its option to dispute this 

holding by means of a civil action in the United States District 

Court for the District of Columbia. See 15 U.S.C. § 

1071(b)(1), (4) (providing choice between district court action 

and Federal Circuit appeal). The district court sided with ProFootball on the laches issue, holding that the 25-year delay 

between the mark’s first registration in 1967 and the TTAB 

filing in 1992 indeed required dismissal of the action. ProFootball, Inc. v. Harjo, 284 F. Supp. 2d 96, 144 (D.D.C. 

2003). We reversed. “[L]aches,” we said, “attaches only to 

parties who have unjustifiably delayed,” Harjo II, 415 F.3d at 

49, and the period of unjustifiable delay cannot start before a 

party reaches the age of majority, id. at 48–49. The youngest 

petitioner, Mateo Romero, was only a year old in 1967. 

Because the correct inquiry would have assessed his delay 

and the consequent prejudice to Pro-Football only from the 

day of his eighteenth birthday in December 1984, we 

remanded the record to the district court to consider, in the 

first instance, the defense of laches with respect to Romero. 

Id. at 49–50. 

USCA Case #03-7162 Document #1180994 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 3 of 10
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 On remand in this case, the district court again found the 

defense of laches persuasive. It held that the seven-year, 

nine-month “Romero Delay Period” evinced a lack of 

diligence on Romero’s part, Harjo III, 567 F. Supp. 2d at 53–

56, and following our instructions to consider both trial and 

economic prejudice, see Harjo II, 415 F.3d at 50, it found that 

that delay harmed Pro-Football, Harjo III, 567 F. Supp. 2d at 

56–62. Now appealing from that decision, Romero 

challenges neither the applicability of laches vel non nor the 

district court’s finding of unreasonable delay. We thus 

confine our review to the only question Romero does raise: 

whether the district court properly found trial and economic 

prejudice sufficient to support a defense of laches. 

II. 

Before turning to that question, we must first resolve a 

preliminary matter flagged but left undecided by our previous 

opinion: the standard of review. In Harjo II, we noted an 

apparent conflict between Daingerfield Island Protective 

Society v. Lujan, 920 F.2d 32, 38 (D.C. Cir. 1990), and 

CarrAmerica Realty Corp. v. Kaidanow, 321 F.3d 165, 172 

(D.C. Cir. 2003), over the standard for reviewing a laches 

determination made on summary judgment. 415 F.3d at 50. 

In Daingerfield, an appeal from summary judgment, we 

applied abuse of discretion review, noting the consistent view 

of the courts that “[b]ecause laches is an equitable doctrine,” 

it is “primarily addressed to the discretion of the trial court.” 

920 F.2d at 38 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also 

Coalition for Canyon Preservation v. Bowers, 632 F.2d 774, 

779 (9th Cir. 1980). By contrast, CarrAmerica seems to have 

reviewed a laches determination de novo, see 321 F.3d at 172 

(“The District Court held that laches did not apply because it 

determined that Appellants had suffered no prejudice from 

Appellee's delay. Upon our de novo review, we determine 

that Appellants did indeed suffer prejudice.”), but it is unclear 

USCA Case #03-7162 Document #1180994 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 4 of 10
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whether this represented a considered opinion on the 

appropriate standard for reviewing laches decisions or merely 

referred to the more general standard that typically applies on 

summary judgment, see id. at 170 (referring to general 

summary judgment standard). Indeed, both standards are 

relevant: we review the existence of material facts in dispute 

or the sufficiency of the evidence to support a legal 

proposition under the familiar de novo summary judgment 

standard, even while deferring to the district court’s 

considerable discretion on the question of how to apply the 

equitable principles of laches to the undisputed facts. See, 

e.g., Hot Wax, Inc. v. Turtle Wax, Inc., 191 F.3d 813, 818–19 

(7th Cir. 1999). We are thus bound by precedent to apply 

abuse of discretion review, at least where, as here, an 

appellant concedes that “the material facts are not in dispute,” 

Appellants’ Reply. Br. 2. 

 Reviewing the district court’s analysis of prejudice in 

light of its considerable discretion, we see no reason to 

reverse. The district court carefully followed our instruction 

to assess both trial and economic prejudice arising from the 

Romero Delay Period, finding both. Romero now challenges 

those determinations, and while his arguments are not without 

merit, the errors alleged cannot overcome our deferential 

standard of review. 

 The district court relied primarily on two factors in 

finding trial prejudice: (1) the death of former Redskins 

president Edward Bennett Williams during the Romero Delay 

Period; and (2) the delay period’s general contribution to the 

time lapse from the date of registration. Cf. Harjo, 50 

U.S.P.Q. 2d at 1773–75 (disparagement is analyzed at the 

time of registration). According to the district court, both 

factors limited Pro-Football’s ability to marshal evidence 

supporting its mark: Williams had met with Native American 

USCA Case #03-7162 Document #1180994 Filed: 05/15/2009 Page 5 of 10
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leaders close to the time of registration to discuss their views, 

while the nearly eight years of further delay made it more 

difficult to obtain any other contemporaneous evidence of 

public attitudes towards the mark. See Harjo III, 567 F. Supp. 

2d at 56–58. Romero mainly argues that this “lost evidence” 

would have had minimal value. He believes that Williams’ 

testimony would have reflected only a narrow set of views on 

the disparaging nature of the Redskins marks, and that any 

possibility that 1967 attitudes could have been better surveyed 

at the time of an earlier suit is outweighed by other 

overwhelming evidence of disparagement. We needn’t cast 

doubt on Romero’s view of the evidence to hold that there 

was no abuse of discretion. The lost evidence of 

contemporaneous public opinion is surely not entirely 

irrelevant, and weighing the prejudice resulting from its loss 

falls well within the zone of the district court’s discretion. In 

reviewing that assessment, we cannot assume that legally 

relevant evidence possibly available in an earlier action would 

have lacked persuasive content. 

 Nor can we fault the district court’s evaluation of 

economic prejudice. Undisputed record evidence reveals a 

significant expansion of Redskins merchandising efforts and 

sizable investment in the mark during the Romero Delay 

Period. Romero believes this investment is irrelevant absent 

some evidence that Pro-Football would have acted 

otherwise—by, say, changing the Redskins name—if Romero 

had sued earlier. But the district court repeatedly rejected this 

argument, citing the Federal Circuit’s holding in Bridgestone/ 

Firestone Research, Inc. v. Automobile Club, 245 F.3d 1359, 

1363 (Fed. Cir. 2001), that “[e]conomic prejudice arises from 

investment in and development of the trademark, and the 

continued commercial use and economic promotion of a mark 

over a prolonged period adds weight to the evidence of 

prejudice.” See Harjo III, 567 F. Supp. 2d at 59. The court 

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thus thought it sufficient that the team deployed investment 

capital toward a mark Romero waited too long to attack, 

whether or not the team could prove that it would necessarily 

have changed its name or employed a different investment 

strategy had Romero sued earlier. 

 This was no abuse of discretion. To be sure, a finding of 

prejudice requires at least some reliance on the absence of a 

lawsuit—if Pro-Football would have done exactly the same 

thing regardless of a more timely complaint, its laches defense 

devolves into claiming harm not from Romero’s tardiness, but 

from Romero’s success on the merits. But in contrast to the 

defense of estoppel—which requires evidence of specific 

reliance on a particular plaintiff’s silence—laches requires 

only general evidence of prejudice, which may arise from 

mere proof of continued investment in the late-attacked mark 

alone. See Automobile Club, 245 F.3d at 1363 (“‘[S]pecific’ 

evidence of ‘reliance’ on the Automobile Club’s silence could 

relate to proof of estoppel, but it does not apply to laches. 

When there has been an unreasonable period of delay by a 

plaintiff, economic prejudice to the defendant may ensue 

whether or not the plaintiff overtly lulled the defendant into 

believing that the plaintiff would not act, or whether or not the 

defendant believed that the plaintiff would have grounds for 

action.”). We have thus described as sufficient “a reliance 

interest resulting from the defendant’s continued development 

of good-will during th[e] period of delay,” and treated 

evidence of continued investment as proof of prejudice 

sufficient to bar injunctive relief. NAACP v. NAACP Legal 

Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 753 F.2d 131, 137–38 (D.C. Cir. 

1985). Such continued investment was unquestionably 

present here. The district court thus acted well within our 

precedent—as well as the precedent of the Federal Circuit, 

which directly reviews TTAB decisions—in finding economic 

prejudice on the basis of investments made during the delay 

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period. The lost value of these investments was sufficient 

evidence of prejudice for the district court to exercise its 

discretion to apply laches, even absent specific evidence that 

more productive investments would in fact have resulted from 

an earlier suit. 

 In so holding, we stress two factors. First, as the district 

court correctly noted, the amount of prejudice required in a 

given case varies with the length of the delay. “If only a short 

period of time elapses between accrual of the claim and suit, 

the magnitude of prejudice required before suit would be 

barred is great; if the delay is lengthy, a lesser showing of 

prejudice is required.” Gull Airborne Instruments, Inc. v. 

Weinberger, 694 F.2d 838, 843 (D.C. Cir. 1982). This 

reflects the view that “equity aids the vigilant and not those 

who slumber on their rights,” NAACP, 753 F.2d at 137, as 

well as the fact that evidence of prejudice is among the 

evidence that can be lost by delay. Eight years is a long 

time—a delay made only more unreasonable by Romero’s 

acknowledged exposure to the various Redskins trademarks 

well before reaching the age of majority. See Harjo III, 567 

F. Supp. 2d at 54–55. The second point follows the first: 

because laches requires this equitable weighing of both the 

length of delay and the amount of prejudice, it leaves the 

district court very broad discretion to take account of the 

particular facts of particular cases. We have no basis for 

finding abuse of that discretion where, as here, the claim of 

error ultimately amounts to nothing more than a different take 

on hypothetical inquiries into what might have been. 

III. 

 A final issue concerns the trademark of the team’s 

cheerleaders, the “Redskinettes,” which Pro-Football first 

registered in 1990. As to this mark and only this mark, 

Romero argues that he acted with reasonable diligence by 

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filing his action in 1992, only 29 months from the mark’s 

registration. The district court disagreed, finding even this 

short delay unreasonable given the relationship between the 

Redskinettes claim and the other claims on which Romero 

was already delaying. See id. & 54 n.5. This view followed 

from Romero’s own litigation position. He argued to the 

district court, this Court, and the TTAB that the disparaging 

nature of the Redskinettes name derives from the disparaging 

nature of the Redskins name itself. See, e.g., Appellants’ 

Opening Br. 28 (“In considering the merits of the 

Redskinettes mark, this Court would necessarily have to 

examine the TTAB’s analysis of the disparagement associated 

with the term ‘redskin’ . . . .”). The district court thus saw no 

reason why Romero, fully aware of both the team’s name and 

the cheerleaders’ name and six-years into his delay period on 

the former, failed to complain immediately about the 

registration of the Redskinettes. 

 While Romero delayed considerably less in attacking the 

Redskinettes mark, the district court did not abuse its 

discretion by analyzing the reasonableness of this delay in 

light of the delay in bringing the underlying claims regarding 

the name of the team itself. The Federal Circuit has at least 

suggested that a defense of laches as to a recently registered 

mark may be based on a failure to challenge an earlier, 

substantially similar mark, see Lincoln Logs Ltd. v. Lincoln 

Pre-Cut Log Homes, Inc., 971 F.2d 732, 734 (Fed. Cir. 1992), 

as has the TTAB, see Copperweld Corp. v. Astralloy-Vulcan 

Corp., 196 U.S.P.Q. 585, 590–91 (TTAB 1977). It is unclear 

to us how this rule interacts with the requirement to analyze 

disparagement at the time of registration, since the factual 

context may well have changed. But in any event and in the 

context of this case, it is difficult to see how it could be 

inequitable to allow Romero to complain about the Redskins 

but equitable to allow his complaint about the Redskinettes, 

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particularly because the Redskinettes name had been in use 

well before the date of registration. Indeed, the registration of 

the Redskinettes mark reflects perhaps the greatest reliance on 

the absence of any previous complaints. Thus, without 

deciding whether Romero could have avoided laches by 

attacking the Redskinettes mark on the day of registration, we 

at least see no abuse of discretion in the district court’s 

finding that the 29-month delay evinced a lack of reasonable 

diligence. 

 In fact, we think the Redskinettes issue best demonstrates 

the reasonableness of the district court’s approach to this case 

as a whole. In 1990, six years into the Romero Delay Period, 

Pro-Football was not only investing in the Redskins mark, but 

seeking to expand legal protection of related marks, placing 

greater reliance on the continued validity of its underlying 

brand name. It would have been bold indeed for the team to 

have sought to register the Redskinettes under their existing 

name had the TTAB been considering revocation—or had the 

TTAB already revoked—the registration of the Redskins 

mark. We thus think it neither a stretch of imagination nor an 

abuse of discretion to conclude that Pro-Football might have 

invested differently in its branding of the Redskins and related 

entities had Romero acted earlier to place the trademark in 

doubt. We accordingly have no basis for questioning the 

district court’s determination. 

IV. 

Deciding only the questions presented, and finding no 

abuse of discretion in the district court’s resolution of them, 

we affirm. 

So ordered. 

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