Ick's Corner

Appeals court sides with Redskins over trademark

The Washington Redskins won another legal victory Friday in a 17-year fight with a group of American Indians who argue the football team’s trademark is racially offensive.

The decision issued Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington doesn’t address the main question of racism at the center of the case. Instead, it upholds the lower court’s decision in favor of the football team on a legal technicality.

The court agreed that the seven Native Americans waited too long to challenge the trademark first issued in 1967. They initially won—the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel canceled the trademarks in 1999—but they’ve suffered a series of defeats in the federal courts since then.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned that decision in 2003 in part because the suit was filed decades after the first Redskins trademark was issued. The U.S. Court of Appeals then sent the case back to Kollar-Kotelly, noting that the youngest of the plaintiffs was only 1-year-old in 1967 and therefore could not have taken legal action at the time.

I honestly wish someone would explain to me how a sports logo, dipicting the strength of a warrior, could possibly offensive!  As a decent of said ‘natives’, I’m in no way, shape or form, offended by the Redskins logo.  The name, Redskin, is another matter, but that is history, so it’s time to let it go.  Lose the PC bullsh*t, ok?!