Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

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

21 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

rum.”  Our precedents hold that the Government “may cre-
ate a forum that is limited to use by certain groups or dedi-
cated solely to the discussion of certain subjects.”  Pleasant 
Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 470 (2009).  JUSTICE 
BARRETT provides little explanation for why that approach
makes sense in the trademark context—she simply declares 
that the limited public forum framework “is apt” due to the 
content-based  nature  of  trademark  law.  Post,  at  7.  Alt-
hough  she  attempts  to  cabin  the  analogy  to  the  content-
based  nature,  the  limited  public  forum  test  is  quite  obvi-
ously about creating a forum.  And, there is reason to doubt 
that the federal trademark register is analogous to a lim-
ited public forum.  To start, unlike a speaker in a limited 
public forum, a markholder does not communicate with cus-
tomers  on  the  register.  Rather,  as  the  Government 
acknowledges,  the  register  “is  a  way  of  warning  potential 
infringers  that  they  risk  liability  if  they  use  the  same  or 
confusingly similar marks.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 19.  The Gov-
ernment has also previously asserted that it did not create
a forum for speech by providing for the federal registration
of trademarks.  See Reply Brief in Matal v. Tam, O. T. 2016, 
No. 15–1293, p. 4 (“[T]he government has not created a fo-
rum here”); Tr. of Oral Arg. in Iancu v. Brunetti, O. T. 2018, 
No. 18–302, p. 27 (“[W]e don’t regard it as a limited public 
forum”).  Without an analogous forum, it is hard to see why
the test for a limited public forum should apply.  We see no 
need to adopt a potentially fraught analogy to resolve the
names clause’s constitutionality.

Despite  the  differences  in  methodology,  both  JUSTICE 
SOTOMAYOR and JUSTICE BARRETT reach the same conclu-
sion  that  the  names  clause  does  not  violate  the  First 
Amendment.  On the bottom line, there is no dispute.  Ra-
ther than adopt a reasonableness test premised upon loose
analogies, however,  we  conclude that  the  names  clause is
grounded in a historical tradition sufficient to demonstrate
that it does not run afoul of the First Amendment.