On Novem ber 16, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decided to allow a Georgia-based brewery to register their name as a trademark . Established about 30 years ago, “Left Nut Brewing Company” will finally be allowed to register after the reversal of an examiner’s decision that the brewery’s name was too vulgar for registration.

According to Left Nut Brewing Company’s website, the name does not immediately relate to the vulgar meaning most would think of. Instead, it is “built on a vernacular which epitomizes the willingness to give up something of extreme value to do something or create something unique.” In allowing the name to become a trademark, Judge Shaw used such meaning for the phrase to defend his ruling saying that the figure of speech can mean a multitude of things and only one was arguably vulgar. Furthermore, the judge ruled that even the “vulgar” meaning—regarding male anatomy—was not “earth-shattering” vulgarity.

The original ruling on the mark’s rejection for trademark registration was based on the Section 2(a) (codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)), which states that a trademark will be refused registration if it “[c]onsists of or comprises immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage . . . .” In a similar case earlier this month, the TTAB ruled that a Florida Brewery could register one of their ales, “Nut Sack Double Brown Ale.” The opinion justified the ruling by stating that the mark was not so outrageous as to refuse trademark registration under the Lanham Act.

As of late, the USPTO has been faced with multiple challenges to weigh the Lanham Act’s Section 2(a) bar against immoral trademark registrations this year with an entity’s First Amendment rights of free speech and expression. These challenges have presented themselves in a wide range of subject from the NFL’s Washington Redskins seeking to maintain their controversial mascot and logo, to a band of Asian Americans who were denied their band’s name, “The Slants,” for its controversial and disparaging meaning to other Asian Americans.