Miranda Walker*
I. Introduction
June 24, 2019, would herald the end of Erik Brunetti’s (Brunetti) nearly thirty-years worth of fighting with the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to get his brand name trademarked. Samuel Hine, How O.G. Streetwear Brand FUCT Took a Free Speech Case All the Way to the Supreme Court, GQ (Jan. 30, 2019), https://www.gq.com/story/fuct-erik-brunetti-supreme-court-case. FUCT, is nominally an initialism of the phrase “friends you can’t trust,” and the brand name of Brunetti’s clothing line. Id. Brunetti acknowledges that his clothing brand’s name may be a bit confusing and even embraces the confusion by stating: “We wanted people to question the pronunciation of it when they looked at the logo.” Id. However, that tongue-in-cheek attitude towards brand creation did not serve Brunetti well when he attempted to register the brand name FUCT as a trademark. In Re Brunetti, 85310960, 2014 WL 3976439, at *1 (Trademark Tr. & App. Bd. Aug. 1, 2014) (Brunetti’s appeal of the PTO’s initial denial of his trademark was rejected). (more…)