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Page Number: 44

2 

VIDAL v. ELSTER 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

federal trademark registration only confers additional ben-
efits on trademark holders.  The denial of trademark regis-
tration is therefore consistent with the First Amendment if 
it turns on “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral content regula-
tions.” 
Iancu  v.  Brunetti,  588  U. S.  388,  424  (2019) 
(SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Because the names clause satisfies that test, I would uphold 
the constitutionality of the provision on that ground alone. 

I 
A 
This case is the latest in a trilogy of challenges to the con-
stitutionality of trademark registration bars in the Lanham 
Act.  See  id.,  at  390;  Matal  v.  Tam,  582  U. S.  218,  223 
(2017).  In the first two cases, the Court struck down as un-
constitutional certain registration bars that discriminated 
based on viewpoint.  Ante, at 4–5 (majority opinion) (citing 
Brunetti, 588 U. S., at 390, 393–394; Tam, 582 U. S., at 243 
(plurality opinion); id., at 248–249 (Kennedy, J., concurring
in part and concurring in judgment).  Because those cases 
involved viewpoint-based provisions, there was no occasion 
to consider the framework for “how to evaluate viewpoint-
neutral restrictions on trademark registration.”  Brunetti, 
588 U. S., at 398, n.  This case, by contrast, presents that 
very  circumstance—a  viewpoint-neutral,  content-based
condition on trademark registration. 

The  names  clause  prohibits  registration  of  a  mark  that
“[c]onsists of or comprises a name . . . identifying a particu-
lar  living  individual  except  by  his  written  consent.”    15 
U. S. C. §1052(c).  No one disputes that the names clause is 
content based.  Its application turns, after all, on the mark’s 
content, i.e., whether it identifies by name a particular liv-
ing individual without his or her written consent.  See City 
of  Austin  v.  Reagan  Nat.  Advertising  of  Austin,  LLC,  596 
U. S. 61, 69 (2022) (explaining that a regulation is content 
based if its application turns on “ ‘the topic discussed or the