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Page Number: 10.0

6 

VIDAL v. ELSTER 

Opinion of the Court 

content  based.  As  we  have  explained,  a  restriction  on
speech  is  content  based  if  the  “law  applies  to  particular
speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message 
expressed.”  Reed,  576  U. S.,  at  163.  The  names  clause 
turns on the content of the proposed trademark—whether
it contains a person’s name.  If the trademark does contain 
a person’s name, and the registrant lacks that person’s con-
sent, then the names clause prohibits registration.  Because 
trademarks containing names “are treated differently from
[trademarks]  conveying  other  types  of  ideas,”  the  names 
clause is content based.  Id., at 164. 

We thus confront a situation we did not address in Tam 
or  Brunetti.  In  Tam,  we  were  careful  to  “leave  open”  the 
framework  “for  deciding  free  speech  challenges  to  provi-
sions of the Lanham Act.”  582 U. S., at 245, n. 17 (plurality 
opinion); see id., at 244, n. 16.  And, in Brunetti, we declined 
to “say anything about how to evaluate viewpoint-neutral
restrictions on trademark registration.”  588 U. S., at 398, n. 

B 
Because we must now consider for the first time the con-
stitutionality of a content-based—but viewpoint-neutral—
trademark restriction, we begin by addressing how the na-
ture of trademark law informs the applicable constitutional
scrutiny.  Although a content-based regulation of speech is
presumptively  unconstitutional  as  a  general  matter,  we 
have not decided whether heightened scrutiny extends to a
viewpoint-neutral trademark restriction.  Several features 
of  trademark  counsel  against  a  per se  rule  of  applying  
heightened  scrutiny  to  viewpoint-neutral,  but  content-
based trademark regulations. 

Most  importantly,  trademark  rights  have  always  coex-
isted  with  the  First  Amendment,  despite  the  fact  that 
trademark  protection  necessarily  requires  content-based 
distinctions.  See  generally  Tam,  582  U. S.,  at  223–224; 
Trade-Mark  Cases,  100  U. S.,  at  92.    Trademark  rights