Fri May 15, 12:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON – The Washington Redskins won another legal victory Friday in a 17-year fight with a group of American Indians who contend the football team's trademark is racially offensive.

The decision issued Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington doesn't address the main question of racism at the center of the case. Instead, it upholds the lower court's decision in favor of the football team on a legal technicality.

Redskins attorney Bob Raskopf said millions have been spent on the Redskins brand and the team would have suffered great economic loss if they lost the trademark registrations. "It's a great day for the Redskins and their fans and their owner Dan Snyder," he said.

The court agreed that the seven Native Americans waited too long to challenge the trademark first issued in 1967. They initially won — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel canceled the trademarks in 1999 — but they've suffered a series of defeats in the federal courts since then.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned that decision in 2003 in part because the suit was filed decades after the first Redskins trademark was issued. The U.S. Court of Appeals then sent the case back to Kollar-Kotelly, noting that the youngest of the plaintiffs was only 1-year-old in 1967 and therefore could not have taken legal action at the time.

Kollar-Kotelly issued a new ruling last summer that rejected that argument. She wrote that the youngest plaintiff turned 18 in 1984 and therefore waited almost eight years after coming of age to join the lawsuit.

The judge did not address whether the Redskins name is offensive or racist. She wrote that her decision was not based on the larger issue of "the appropriateness of Native American imagery for team names."

A three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld that decision Friday.

The plaintiffs have a backup plan: A group of six American Indians ranging in age from 18 to 24 filed essentially the same claim two years ago, but the new case has been on hold until this one was resolved.

"We're hopeful that case will lead us ultimately to a ruling on the merits," said Philip Mause, attorney for the American Indians. "We're very confident about our position on the merits. We think this term is disparaging of Native Americans."

Raskopf said it's all too late. "The time when the case could have been brought was 1967," he said. "So it's not going to get any easier for anybody to bring the case now."




Article: HERE

Posted: Wednesday July 23, 2003 8:31 PM





WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Washington Redskins, again confronted by American Indians who find the team's name offensive, asked a judge to overturn a ruling that revoked the team's federal trademark protection.

"My clients honor -- they don't ridicule," said Redskins lawyer Robert Raskopf, echoing the NFL team's long-held contention that its use of the nickname is meant as a tribute.

Seven American Indians successfully argued otherwise in 1999, when the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted their petition to cancel the team's trademark registrations because of a federal law that prohibits registering "disparaging" names.

The Redskins appealed, and U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly heard the case Wednesday. A ruling is not expected for a few weeks, after Kollar-Kotelly has had time to review a sealed deposition by Redskins owner Dan Snyder regarding the case's possible financial impact.

If the team loses the case, it stands to lose its exclusive rights to market the Redskins name, particularly through merchandise. The petitioners hope this would lead Snyder to change the nickname, although he has pledged not to do so.

Raskopf was unrelenting in his criticism of the trademark board, telling Kollar-Kotelly that "they obviously lack the ability to separate good evidence from bad." He attacked the petitioners' use of dictionary definitions of "redskin," said a phone survey presented as evidence was flawed and that the seven petitioners were not sufficiently representative of the American Indian population.

"It can't be seven people. It can't be 100 people. It can't be 1,000 people," Raskopf said. "There are 2.41 million Native Americans."

The lead petitioner, Suzan Shown Harjo, said the team has yet to produce an American Indian that favors the team's nickname since the petition was first filed in 1992.

"The largest Native American organizations support not only our position against the name, but our side in the suit," Harjo said. "It's been more than 11 years, and they've yet to produce any Native American people."

The team first registered the Redskins nickname in 1967, and Raskopf argued there was a "ridiculously long" period of 25 years before the petition was filed against it. Raskopf said the sealed financial evidence shows the Redskins would suffer "every imaginable loss you can think of" if they no longer had the exclusivity of the brand they had been marketing for 36 years.

Michael Lindsay, lawyer for the petitioners, claimed the team would suffer minimal financial impact, but Kollar-Kotelly was skeptical of his premise.

"If it doesn't make any difference," the judge said, "then why do people register?"

Article: HERE