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Past Tense Of What?

December 22, 2017

A picture of a bomb with the letter F on it.  A photographic reprensentation of the slang term F-bomb or Eff bomb.  When you say the "F" word it is said that you droped the "F-Bomb".

The FUCT brand of clothing was founded in the 1990s, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied a petition to trademark the label because it found it violated the Lanham Act’s ban on immoral or scandalous matter. “The examining attorney reasoned that FUCT is the past tense of the verb ‘fuck,’ a vulgar word, and is therefore scandalous,” explained judge Kimberly A. Moore, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But that was then. On December 15 the court reversed the USPTO and granted the trademark, ruling that barring trademarks that include immoral or scandalous language is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. The decision wouldn’t have been possible until last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned case law that held restricting someone’s right to have a trademark didn’t necessarily restrict that person’s free speech. In that case, involving rock band The Slants, the court found the USPTO’s denial of trademarks had a chilling effect on speech.

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