[Despite my efforts to straighten things out, the fonts, spacing, etc, in this post has ended up an ugly hodge-podge. My apologies. - CF] T o first amendment lawyers, this is preeminently the term in which Matal v. Tam found that the disparagement clause of the trademark statute infringes upon the free speech right under the first amendment. The court was unanimous as to the judgment (that the "Slants," a dance-rock band, can be trademarked as such) though there were differences as to the reasoning. Hugh C. Hansen, law professor at Fordham, has called this “one of the most important First Amendment free speech cases to come along in many years.” Simon Tam and his fellow band members made for sympathetic defendants. They obviously were not disparaging their own Asian background. They were appropriating a stereotypical slur concerning Asians’ eyes, in the tradition of many groups throughout history who have turned insults into badges of ...