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Washington Redskins' Trademark Revoked by US Patent Office; Twitter Responds With Name Suggestions

Don Pittman (news@gospelherald.com) Jun 18, 2014 06:01 PM EDT

If you have not heard by now that, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has decided to cancel the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the team's name "disparaging to Native Americans," then you haven't been paying attention.

The result was a 2-1 victory for the five Native Americans who have petitioned the court for action.  

As a result, the Redskins may have a harder time protecting the team's name and logo if other people use them without permission on anything, the Associated Press reported.

Robert Tuchman, president of sports and marketing firm Goviva,  told ABC that this decision was "much bigger than the Redskins."

"If they are forced to change what does that mean for the Chicago Blackhawks and other teams that are in the same boat?" he said.

"This puts a big dent in their business model of trying to gain revenue from a disparaging term of slur," Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.) told ESPN. "I find it very unlikely that someone is going to overrule the patent office on this. This is a huge decision by a federal agency."

Attorneys representing the team didn't come off as tremendously worried, though. They issued a statement pointing out that they had faced this type of decision before, referring to a ruling in 1967.     

"We've seen this story before. And just like last time, today's ruling will have no effect at all on the team's ownership of and right to use the Redskins name and logo," the statement read.

The lawyers expressed confidence that the decision would be reversed on appeal.

Also, they have established a common trademark through years of use, and are protected by that stipulation.  

Even though this situation is far from finalized, and the ruling doesn't mean the team will be forced to change its name, Twitter users today have been busy offering suggestions for a new nickname at #newredskinsname anyway.  

Here are a few we found interesting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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