The US Supreme Court has struck down a ban by the US Patent and Trademark Office on the swastika on the grounds that it restricts free speech.
Steve Maynard, 50, a Jew who used to work for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) applied to own the trademark, but lower courts denied his applications after deeming the name disparaging.
The swastika, Maynard said, would now be sold to “white supremacists” at a high price. It is a symbol “that needs to be taken seriously, and not sold for $10 at a rally for everyone to have. They would have to buy them through us, and we would charge a high rate, and if they didn’t buy them through us, we would have the right to go in and confiscate merchandise and just frustrate their purpose,” he said.
Maynard will encounter some obstacles, former a trademark examiner said. The USPTO registers trademarks because they reflect a connection between a product or service and the company that produces or offers it. The examiner said because the swastika is not his intellectual property, Maynard’s application will likely be denied.
The government will likely conclude that there is no perceived connection between the swastika and Snowflake Enterprises, Maynard’s company, he said.
Maynard’s business plan also includes opening a culinary school with the profits he earns off “nigga” T-shirts, because such schools are too expensive for black students.
In 1898 The National Biscuit Company (later shortened to Nabisco) had a copyright issue over their Marshmallow Dainties. Pacific Coast Biscuit company started selling Marshmallow Dainties in a similar packaging to Nabisco, right down to the ancient European symbol inspired logo, by using the swastika instead of the Cross of Lorraine.
They were issued with an injunction over copyright infringement, but carried on trading under the swastika though, until Nabisco bought them out in the 1930s, before the National Socialist German Workers’ Party gained international prominence.