Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-704_4246.pdf
Page Number: 51

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

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

sense, yet they do provide some instruction.”  Legal Services 
Corporation v. Velazquez, 531 U. S. 533, 544 (2001).  They
generally  stand  for  the  proposition  that  the  Free  Speech 
Clause permits governmental bodies to impose a “reasona-
ble, viewpoint-neutral limitation” on a “state-bestowed en-
titlement.”  Davenport, 551 U. S., at 189; see, e.g., Christian 
Legal Soc. Chapter of Univ. of Cal., Hastings College of Law 
v. Martinez, 561 U. S. 661, 669 (2010) (upholding “reasona-
ble, viewpoint-neutral condition” on access to  government 
initiative); Ysursa v. Pocatello Ed. Assn., 555 U. S. 353, 355 
(2009)  (same);  Cornelius  v.  NAACP  Legal  Defense  &  Ed. 
Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 808 (1985) (same); Regan v. Tax-
ation  With  Representation  of  Wash.,  461  U. S.  540,  550 
(1983) (same).2 

2 
Someone with a federally registered mark enjoys certain
benefits by virtue of that registration.  Even so, free speech 
is not abridged when these benefits are denied to someone 
based on reasonable, viewpoint-neutral criteria. 

Consider  three  basic  tenets  of  trademark  law,  each  of 
which  the  Court  rightly  acknowledges.    See  ante,  at  1–2. 
First,  “every  trademark’s  ‘primary’  function”  is  to  tell  the 

—————— 

2 JUSTICE THOMAS responds that these precedents are an “ill fit” for the 
names clause because this case does not involve “cash subsid[ies],” “un-
ion  dues,”  or a  “limited  public  forum.”    Ante,  at  20–21.    That  response 
misses  the  entire  point.  In  the  past,  this  Court  has  relied  on  limited-
public-forum cases as instructive, even if not controlling, when resolving 
constitutional  challenges  to  governmental  subsidies  (and  vice  versa). 
See, e.g., Legal Services Corporation, 531 U. S., at 544.  The Court relied 
on these decisions for their underlying legal principle only.  That is, after 
all,  how  law  works.    That  the  trademark  registration  system  does  not 
involve cash subsidies, union dues, or a limited public forum is immate-
rial for purposes of the analysis in this opinion.  As just discussed, the 
legal principle in each of these cases is that the Constitution permits rea-
sonable,  viewpoint-neutral  limitations  on  speech  where,  as  here,  the
Government only benefits certain forms of expression through initiatives 
that are intrinsically content based without restricting other expression.