Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1293_1o13.pdf
Page Number: 35

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

5 

Opinion of KENNEDY, J. 

Americans  can  and  do  contribute  to  our  diverse  Nation. 
Brief  for  Respondent  1–4,  42–43.    While  thoughtful  per-
sons  can  agree  or  disagree  with  this  approach,  the  disso-
nance between the trademark’s potential to teach and the
Government’s insistence on its own, opposite, and negative
interpretation  confirms  the  constitutional  vice  of  the 
statute. 

II 
The parties dispute whether trademarks are commercial
speech  and  whether  trademark  registration  should  be 
considered  a  federal  subsidy.  The  former  issue  may  turn
on whether certain commercial concerns for the protection 
of trademarks might, as a general matter, be the basis for
regulation.  However that issue is resolved, the viewpoint 
based  discrimination  at  issue  here  necessarily  invokes 
heightened scrutiny.

“Commercial  speech  is  no  exception,”  the  Court  has
explained,  to  the  principle  that  the  First  Amendment
“requires  heightened  scrutiny  whenever  the  government
creates  a  regulation  of  speech  because  of  disagreement 
with the message it conveys.”  Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 
564 U. S. 552, 566 (2011) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  Unlike content based discrimination, discrimination 
based  on  viewpoint,  including  a  regulation  that  targets
speech for its offensiveness, remains of serious concern in
the commercial context.  See Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prod-
ucts Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 65, 71–72 (1983). 

To the extent trademarks qualify as commercial speech, 
they are an example of why that term or category does not
serve as a blanket exemption from the First Amendment’s 
requirement  of  viewpoint  neutrality.    Justice  Holmes’ 
reference to the “free trade in ideas” and the “power of . . . 
thought  to  get  itself  accepted  in  the  competition  of  the 
market,”  Abrams  v.  United  States,  250  U. S.  616,  630 
(1919) (dissenting opinion), was a metaphor.  In the realm