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Page Number: 46.0

4 

VIDAL v. ELSTER 

SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in judgment 

sufficient explanation in part by claiming that, if anything, 
the  Court’s  evidence  “does  not  establish  a  historical  ana-
logue for the names clause.”  Ante, at 1 (opinion concurring 
in part).  That may well be true.  Yet this back-and-forth 
highlights the indeterminacy of the Court’s history-and-tra-
dition inquiry, which one might aptly describe as the equiv-
alent of entering a crowded cocktail party and looking over 
everyone’s heads to find your friends.  Cf. Conroy v. Anis-
koff,  507  U. S.  511,  519  (1993)  (Scalia,  J.,  concurring  in 
judgment).  To make matters worse, the five-Justice major-
ity  that  undertakes  this  tradition-as-dispositive  inquiry 
found its friends in a crowded party to which it was not in-
vited.  That majority has drawn conclusive inferences from
its  historical  evidence,  all  without  any  guidance  from  the 
litigants or the court below.  That stark departure from set-
tled principles of party presentation and adversarial testing
in favor of in-chambers historical research by nonhistorians
raises  more  questions  than  answers.  Cf.  Maslenjak  v. 
United  States,  582  U. S.  335,  354  (2017)  (GORSUCH,  J., 
joined by THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in
judgment) (“[T]he crucible of adversarial testing on which
we  usually  depend,  along  with  the  experience  of  our
thoughtful  colleagues  on  the  district  and  circuit  benches,
could  yield  insights  (or  reveal  pitfalls)  we  cannot  muster
guided only by our own lights”).

It  is  not  appropriate,  much  less  necessary,  to  find
common-law analogues to settle the constitutionality of the
names  clause  or  any  other  trademark  registration  provi-
sion.  I agree with JUSTICE BARRETT that, even if the ma-
jority’s historical “evidence were rock solid,” there is no good 
reason to believe that “hunting for historical forebears on a 
restriction-by-restriction basis is the right way to analyze 
the constitutional question.”  Ante, at 1, 13.  The majority
attempts to reassure litigants and the lower courts that a 
“history-focused approac[h]” here is sensible and workable, 
by  citing  to  New  York  State  Rifle  &  Pistol  Assn.,  Inc.  v.