WalMart drew a torrent of criticism and mockery for trying to capitalize on the new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery with a line of products. See, e.g., the tweet below, and story with more mocking tweets here.
They even tried to trademark “Juneteenth,” shown here on an ice cream carton.
This won’t fly.
Trademarks provide legal protection for commercial brands. There are two types of trademark, registered and common law.
A registered trademark, denoted by the symbol ®, is a legal status granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
A company doesn’t have to go through that process. It can claim exclusive use of a word or mark simply by putting ™ on it, which courts might enforce, but the legal right isn’t as strong.
A big difference is that with a registered trademark, the vetting is done by the USPTO and issues of validity are resolved before the trademark registration is granted. By contrast, a common law trademark is merely a claim, and the vetting is done by a court if the trademark is challenged or the claimant sues to enforce it.
A basic rule applicable to all trademarks is you can’t claim exclusive rights to common words, phrases, and descriptions. You also can’t trademark your own name.
Thus, “John Smith” is not a valid trademark. Neither is the phrase “apple pie.” However, you may be able to create a valid trademark by misspelling a word, using a unique or artistic lettering style, or creating a unique combination of words or phrases. Thus, “John Smith’s Special Recipe Apple Pie” in a stylistic typeface might pass muster.
Trying to trademark the name of a holiday violates almost every rule of trademark law there is. You can claim “Fourth of July™” all you want, but no court will uphold it, and you’re not going to get “Fourth of July®” from the USPTO.
From this it’s obvious that “Juneteenth™” per se is dead on arrival. I’m guessing WalMart’s lawyers would have argued the trademark is the entire phrase, “Celebration Edition Juneteenth.” It would ultimately be up to a court to decide, but I don’t think that flies, either, for the same reason “Enjoy Your Fourth of July Weekend!” won’t.
In any case WalMart, belatedly recognizing the whole idea of trying to claim Juneteenth as their own is both absurd and in super-bad taste, decided not to push their luck, and instead pulled the product and issued an apology.
Meanwhile, all kinds of claimants, many of them black-owned businesses, are filing applications for trademarks on various permutations of “Juneteenth” (see story here). I won’t be terribly surprised if the USPTO denies all of them, for the reasons above.