Ninth Circuit Extends Tam First Amendment Protections to Advertising

摘要

Trademark applications infrequently implicate broad philosophical or jurisprudential questions about free speech and its possible limits as present in Tam. The Ninth Circuit clearly (and correctly in our view) saw and applied the Tarn case as standing for the proposition that the government is not permitted to impose special prohibitions on speakers who express views on disfavored subjects or because of hostility towards the messenger or the underlying message expressed.