“In diversity cases where there is a conflict between the laws of the states of the parties, the federal court has to determine which state’s laws to apply. New York federal courts will use a multi-factor test to determine which state has the “most significant relationship” to the legal dispute, and will use that state’s laws.”Marc Randazza
“Speech is presumptively protected. And, while there were decisions at one time that prohibited speech that had the tendency to produce negative results, those were thoroughly wiped away in 1969 in the landmark case, Brandenburg v. Ohio.”Marc Randazza
“There is absolutely nothing legally actionable about [Allman’s] statement. It is clearly rhetorical hyperbole, which is 100% protected by the First Amendment. I think there would be no legal repercussions should someone write this about Queen Elizabeth or the President or anyone else. Of course, that does not mean that some abject moron of a lawyer wouldn’t take the case — and lord knows that Florida [where Hogg lives] has a bumper crop of them. But any lawsuit would be foolish and wouldn’t last long.”Marc Randazza
“The government should not be in the business of deciding what is moral, immoral or offensive. The section of the trademark act in question in this case is a leftover from Victorian times, and is used now primarily, I would argue, (and have argued) to promote social agendas with coercive censorship. I do not trust any government to tell me what I can and cannot handle. The marketplace of ideas will do that for us.”Marc Randazza
“Brunetti does not necessarily create an automatic sea-change in the federal trademark registration regime. We will need to see what the USPTO does in the short term in response to the decision. If it allows previously “immoral or scandalous” marks to proceed to registration, then we should expect to see a flood of trademark applications for years' worth of a backlog of improperly-denied registrations. If the USPTO keeps sitting on its hands, however, that rush will likely be delayed until the Supreme Court (if it takes the case) decides the issue.”Marc Randazza
“There is no greater way than to preach your love for the First Amendment then to take on a case from someone whose speech you abhor.”Marc Randazza
“"This [case] looks much more like the purview of the left, at least in the West…" "You see this with people on the right being systematically ‘no platformed’, not just from media sites, but from YouTube, from Facebook, from Twitter and now from PayPal and Stripe. If any company decides that it doesn’t like the kind of thing you have to say, then you are off."”Marc Randazza