Sotomayor asks if ‘Trump is a thief’ could be trademarked

With two days until the presidential inauguration, Donald Trump is everywhere — even in the middle of Supreme Court arguments. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the president-elect in a hypothetical on Wednesday while weighing whether free speech protections extend to trademark names that are disparaging. 

She asked if “Trump is a thief” could be a protected trademark. 

{mosads}“But your argument earlier was that if someone slanders or libels an individual by saying Trump — before he was a public figure — ‘Trump is a thief’ and that becomes their trademark, that even if they go to court and prove that that’s a libel or a slander, that trademark would still exist and would be capable of use because otherwise canceling it would be an abridgment of the First Amendment?” Sotomayor asked attorney John Connell. 

“I believe that’s correct,” Connell said.

Sotomayor’s remarks came in a case about an Asian-American rock band that’s been battling the Patent and Trademark Office since 2011 to register its name, “The Slants.”