Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 30.0

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

3 

BARRETT, J., concurring in part 

A 
As  the  Court  explains,  trademark  law  existed  at  the
founding, albeit in nascent form.  Ante, at 7; B. Pattishall, 
The  Constitutional  Foundations  of  American  Trademark 
Law,  78  Trademark  Rep.  456,  457–459  (1988).    From  the 
outset,  trademark  protection  “was  an  inherently  content-
based endeavor.”  Ante, at 7.  Early English and American
laws prohibited producers from placing another producer’s
trademark on their goods—a prohibition that depended on 
comparing the content of the mark with the content of the
allegedly infringing use.  Ante, at 7–8.  That alone does not 
prove  that  every  type  of  content-based  trademark  regula-
tion  should  escape  heightened  scrutiny.    More  relevant  is 
that courts and legislatures, in identifying the marks that 
merit legal protection, have long discriminated on the basis
of content.  Ante, at 9–10.  This history, in my view, is key 
to understanding why we need not evaluate content-based 
trademark registration restrictions under heightened scru-
tiny.

Once trademark law got off the ground in the mid-19th
century,  it  had  an  unmistakably  content-based  character. 
Thomson v. Winchester, the first reported American trade-
mark case, involved two parties who both sold medicine un-
der the name “ ‘Thomsonian Medicines.’ ”  36 Mass. 214, 216 
(1837).  See E. Rogers, Some Historical Matter Concerning 
Trade-Marks, 9 Mich. L. Rev. 29, 42 (1910).  The Court cites 
this case as reflective of the content-based nature of trade-
mark protection.  Ante, at 8–9.  True, Thomson explained
that the defendant could be liable if he had sold his goods 
under  the  plaintiff ’s  name  as  an  attempted  fraud.  36 
Mass., at 216.  But the court explained that the result would 
be different if the defendant “call[ed his goods] Thomsonian
as  a  generic  term  designating  their  general  character.” 
Ibid.  That was  because  Thomson,  the  plaintiff,  could  not
claim an exclusive right to use the name “if [the] term had
acquired a generic meaning, descriptive of a general kind,