Navajo activist celebrates trademark ruling against Washington Redskins

A federal judge has ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel registration of the Washington Redskins' trademark, ruling that the team name may be disparaging to Native Americans.

The ruling Wednesday by Judge Gerald Bruce Lee affirms an earlier finding by an administrative appeal board.

Native American advocate Amanda Blackhorse has been battling the team for years. In 2006, Blackhorse put her name down as a plaintiff in the case Blackhorse et al v. Pro-Football Inc., which she filed with four other Native Americans alleging that the Washington team's name was a slur.

"This is a vindication of what Amanda and the others who were petitioners and defendants were saying all along – that this was a disparaging term to Native American people. Now you have a federal judge who agrees with that and I think that's important," said the lawyer who argued the case in front of Lee, Jeff Lopez, a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath.

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The case was filed shortly after Blackhorse, then a student at the University of Kansas, joined a group called Not In Our Honor to protest the use of Native-themed words and images at a game between the Washington team and the Kansas City team at Arrowhead Stadium.

Blackhorse celebrated in June 2014, when the Patent and Trademark Office canceled the registration, but that was put on hold for the appeal to the federal court, where the team lost on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Blackhorse called from a Houston airport to share her joy at the federal judge's ruling.

"I am so excited, this is just a huge victory for not just the plaintiffs but for Native Americans as a whole. All Native Americans can stand proud. This means the cancellations stand."

After the 2014 ruling canceling the trademarks, the Washington NFL team sued Blackhorse saying her initial lawsuit deprived the team of its freedom of speech. This ruling means Blackhorse is no longer a defendant; the case, as it involves her, is essentially over, Lopez said.

The Washington NFL team is likely to appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit before the end of the year, said Lopez.

"Next for Amanda, she can have the opportunity to come to the arguments if the team appeals. Otherwise, she can get on with the rest of her life in the short term," Lopez said.

"This would be the time for the team to say, OK, we're done. I am hoping they'll just let it go. But they've been very stubborn. So who knows," said Blackhorse, who lives in Kayenta on the Navajo Reservation.

Blackhorse is a social worker and a mother of two. She was on the tarmac in Houston, on her way to Washington to give the keynote address to a meeting of the Native American Journalists Association, when her phone started buzzing with the good news.

"I was literally just sitting in the plane and I called my lawyer and he said it was a ruling across the board. I'm going to celebrate by going to a nice dinner. It's so awesome."

Includes information by The Associated Press.