Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

BARRETT, J., concurring in part 

mark merits protection only so far as it “identif[ies] the ar-
ticle to which it is affixed as that of the person adopting it, 
and distinguish[es] it from others.”  Gillott v. Esterbrook, 47 
Barb.  455,  462  (N. Y.  Sup.  Ct.  1867),  aff ’d,  48  N. Y.  374 
(1872);  see  also  Matal  v.  Tam,  582  U. S.  218,  223  (2017). 
This inquiry is inherently content based. 

The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, 
which  incorporated  the  First  Amendment  against  the 
States, did not prompt courts to change course.1  They con-
tinued to scrutinize proposed marks based on their content.
Likewise,  this  Court’s  first  trademark  decision,  issued  in 
1871, invoked Amoskeag’s content-based criteria to define 
those trademarks “entitled to legal protection.”  Canal Co. 
v. Clark, 13 Wall. 311, 323–324 (1872) (concluding that “ge-
ographical  names,”  including  “ ‘Pennsylvania  wheat’ ”  and
“ ‘Virginia tobacco,’ ” could not be protected as trademarks, 
as they “point only at the place of production, not to the pro-
ducer”).  See ante, at 10.  Thus, at the earliest point at which
the First Amendment could have applied to trademark law,
content  discrimination,  particularly  with  respect  to  the
very definition of a trademark, was the norm. 

Trademark  registration  restrictions  followed  suit.  Fed-
eral  registration,  though  not  required  to  enforce  a  trade-
mark, “confers important legal rights and benefits on trade-
mark owners” and  thus “helps to  ensure that trademarks 
are fully protected.”  Matal, 582 U. S., at 225–226 (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).    Unsurprisingly,  as  the  Court 
notes, Congress’s first trademark statute included certain
content-based restrictions for federal registration.  See Act 
of July 8, 1870, §§77, 79, 16 Stat. 210–211; ante, at 9.  And 
today, each of the Lanham Act’s registration criteria refers 

—————— 

1 There would have been no reason for courts to consider the relation-
ship between the First Amendment and trademark law before 1868.  Be-
fore incorporation, the First Amendment applied only to the Federal Gov-
ernment, and there was no federal trademark law until 1870.  Ante, at 
8–9.