State's Rejection Of Driver's 'IMGOD' Vanity Plate Unconstitutional, Federal Court Rules

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I'm always happy to see someone add to the growing body of First Amendment/vanity license plate case law. Using a very limited amount of space, some applicants have managed to offend the delicate sensibilities of government agencies, even without using the number 5 twice to spell "A55."A New Hampshire man applied for a license plate to make an uncontroversial statement about law enforcement (COPSLIE) only to have it rejected by the state, which claimed this fact was "offensive to good taste." He took his case to the state's Supreme Court and drove away with a free speech victory and a future full of hassling by law enforcement.Completely conversely, the Indiana Supreme Court refused to give a cop his 01NK license plate, arguing rather absurdly that speech-via-vanity plate isn't protected because it's too… short. The court did not specify how many characters it takes for speech protections kick in, but presumably it's a larger number than the eight allotted for Indiana license plates.Via Courthouse News comes another successful First Amendment challenge. A federal court in Kentucky has decided [PDF] that the state's refusal to give Bennie Hart his requested "IMGOD" license plate violates his First Amendment rights.The state operates a specialty plate program that allows drivers to add logos to their license plates. That isn't the issue here, but since the state law governing vanity plates without vanity logos incorporates ("clunkily," the court notes) the logo statute, the same restrictions applied to logos control what words drivers can put on their plates.Here are the guidelines:

(c) The group, or the group’s lettering logo, image or message to be placed on the license plate, if created, shall not discriminate against any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and shall not be construed, as determined by the cabinet, as an attempt to victimize or intimidate any person due to the person’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;(d) The group shall not be a political party and shall not have been created primarily to promote a specific political belief;(e) The group shall not have as its primary purpose the promotion of any specific faith, religion, or anti-religion;(f) The name of the group shall not be the name of a special product or brand name, and shall not be construed, as determined by the cabinet, as promoting a product or brand name; and(g) The group’s lettering, logo, image, or message to be placed on the license plate, if created, shall not be obscene, as determined by the cabinet.

[I]f this is true, and the Commonwealth only approves vanity plates whose message it officially adopts and endorses, then the Commonwealth is “babbling prodigiously and incoherently;” and “saying many unseemly things.” Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744, 1758 (2017).The same year Mr. Hart was denied a plate reading “IM GOD”, the Transportation Cabinet approved the contradictory plates “NOGAS”, “EATGAS”, “VEGAN”, and “BBQ4U” among many others. [R. 49-25.] Under the Transportation Cabinet’s logic, the Commonwealth is not only contradicting itself, but spewing nonsense. If the Court finds that vanity plates are government speech, then the Court would also be finding that Kentucky has officially endorsed the words “UDDER”, “BOOGR”, “JUICY”, “W8LOSS” and “FATA55”.

The Transportation Cabinet argues that a statute banning religious reference is reasonable because it is necessary to support its legitimate government interest in “promot[ing] highway safety” because “potentially controversial messages . . . could lead to confrontation or distraction on its highways.”[...]If the Transportation Cabinet genuinely wants to avoid controversy on Kentucky’s highways by preventing “promotion of any specific faith, religion, or anti-religion” from appearing on vanity plates, then it should have denied “IM4GOD”, “ASKGOD”, GR8GOD”, “LUVGOD”. But it did not. [R. 49-12.] Instead, the Transportation Cabinet has approved multiplate vanity plates featuring the word “god”. Id. This suggests that the law as applied to Mr. Hart is neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral. To allow such plates as “IM4GOD” and “LUVGOD” but reject “IM GOD” belies viewpoint neutrality.

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Author Tries To Trademark The Word 'Dark' For All Of Literary Fiction

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For whatever reason, while we see a ton of instances of someone trying to trademark a word or phrase that is absolutely generic and not a source identifier, often it seems some of the most ridiculous instances come from the literary world. Why authors have such a hard time with this is perhaps not entirely mysterious. Steeped in an industry with a tradition of strong views on copyright protections, I suppose it's a short leap that those in that industry would assume trademark works the same way. After all, journalists make this mistake all the time, so why not authors?Still, witnessing my book-writing brethren make a run at trademarking words like "how" or "cocky" is more than slightly frustrating. And now we can add the word "dark" to the mix, as author Christine Feehan has applied for a trademark on that word for use in books and fiction.

Christine Feehan is the author of several bestselling series, including one simply called "Dark" -- in her trademark application with the USPTO, she has applied for the exclusive right to use the word "Dark" (in "standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color") in "Series of fiction works, namely, novels and books."Literally thousands of books have the word "dark" in their titles, including several series such as Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Stephen King's Dark Tower books.

Feehan's application has not yet been assigned to an examiner. It was filed on her behalf by Greg Mavronicolas, a New York based attorney from the Mavronicolas Law Group PLLC.

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