The Supreme Court has recently made significant efforts to clarify how the Lanham Act and the First Amendment interact in the context of trademark law. For example, in 2017, the Court in Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017), deemed the Lanham Act’s bar on disparaging trademarks unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment. In 2019, the Court in Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. 388 (2019), similarly found the bar on trademarks containing immoral or scandalous matter unconstitutional, also because it violated the First Amendment. In both of those cases, the Court was presented with provisions of the Lanham Act that constituted “viewpoint based” restrictions on speech because they only prohibited the registration of trademarks reflecting a single viewpoint, namely, trademarks that give offense in Tam and trademarks containing immoral or scandalous matter in Brunetti.
