Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 2.0

2 

VIDAL v. ELSTER 

Syllabus 

This Court has twice concluded that trademark restrictions that dis-
criminate based on viewpoint violate the First Amendment.  See Matal 
v. Tam, 582 U. S. 218; Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U. S. 388. 

Because the names clause does not single out a trademark “based on 
the  specific  motivating  ideology  or  the  opinion  or  perspective  of  the
speaker,”  Reed,  576  U. S.,  at  168,  it  does  not  facially  discriminate 
against any viewpoint.  But a law that does not facially discriminate
based on viewpoint may still be found to discriminate based on view-
point  in  its  practical  operation.  See  Sorrell  v.  IMS  Health  Inc.,  564 
U. S. 552, 565.  Elster suggests that is the case here because obtaining
consent for a trademark under the names clause is easier if it flatters 
rather than mocks a subject.  But there are many reasons why a person 
may  wish  to  withhold  consent  to  register  a  trademark  bearing  his 
name. 

Although  the  names  clause  is  not  viewpoint  based,  it  is  content 
based because “it applies to particular speech because of the topic dis-
cussed or the idea or message expressed,” Reed, 576 U. S., at 163—i.e., 
it turns on whether the proposed trademark contains a person’s name. 
Thus, the Court confronts a situation not addressed in Tam and Bru-
netti.  Pp. 3–6.

(b) Although a content-based regulation of speech is presumptively 
unconstitutional, this Court has not decided whether heightened scru-
tiny  extends  to  a  content-based—but  viewpoint-neutral—trademark 
restriction.  Several features of trademark counsel against a per se rule 
of  applying  heightened  scrutiny  in  such  cases.   Most  importantly, 
trademark  rights  have  always  coexisted  with  the  First  Amendment, 
and the inherently content-based nature of trademark law has never 
been a cause for constitutional concern. 

This  country  has  recognized  trademark  rights  since  the  founding.
Much of early American trademark law came by way of English law, 
where the protection of trademarks was an inherently content-based 
endeavor.  For most of the 18th and 19th centuries, trademark law fell 
largely within the “province of the States,” Tam, 582 U. S., at 224, and 
went largely unrecorded.  The first reported decisions in state and fed-
eral  courts  revolved  around a  trademark’s  content.    See  Thomson v. 
Winchester,  36  Mass.  214,  216;  Taylor  v.  Carpenter,  3  Story  458  (D. 
Mass.).  And as recorded trademark law began to take off in the last 
decades of the 19th century, its established content-based nature con-
tinued.    In  1870,  Congress  enacted  the  first  federal  trademark  law, 
containing prohibitions on what could be protected as a trademark.  It 
restricted a trademark based upon its content.  And as trademark dis-
putes increased, courts continued to assess trademarks based on their 
content.  The content-based nature of trademark law did not change