CBS Miami reports that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has weighed in on the ongoing controversy surrounding the use of the term “redskins” in the name of Washington’s NFL team. In an interview for the radio show The Arena, the former Florida governor stated that he did not think that the team should change its name, opining that “[i]t’s a sport, for crying out loud. It’s a football team. I’m missing something here, I guess.” On the other side of the argument, the activist group Change the Mascot said in a statement that “no presidential candidate should be promoting this racial slur against Native Americans,” and agreed that Bush “clearly is missing something.” Similarly, in 2014 the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found the term “redskins” to be disparaging, cancelling all six of the team’s federal trademark registrations containing the term. As noted in previous blog posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, the cancellation of the team’s trademark registrations does not mean that it cannot continuing using the name, or that other parties are free to use the name without permission. However, trademark registration does provide significant benefits, particularly when it comes to enforcement, and one imagines that most trademark owners would prefer to have their marks protected by registration.

There are many people who, like Jeb Bush, think that the “redskins” controversy is much ado about nothing, and many others who find the term deeply offensive and disparaging to Native Americans. Regardless of one’s views on the subject, the long-running dispute could likely be resolved by changing the team’s name to something less controversial and, as a bonus, more registrable. Bush, for his part, has already filed to register JEB! as a trademark, and plainly likes the idea of a ® registration symbol next to his nickname. How about the JEBSKINS? Everyone wins. Read the full article here. From CBS Miami.

By Michael Vadon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.