UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING ISSUES SURROUNDING TRADEMARK PROTECTIONS FOR THE OFFICIAL INSIGNIA OF FEDERALLY AND/OR STATE RECOGNIZED NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES Commissioner's Conference Room Room 912 2121 Crystal Drive Arlington, Virginia 22202 Thursday, July 15, 1999 The hearing convened, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m. PANEL MEMBERS: SHARON MARSH, Administrator for Trademark Policy & Procedure DEBBIE COHN, Senior Trademark Administrator ELEANOR MELTZER, Staff Attorney, Office of Legislative and International Affairs Q. TODD DICKINSON, Acting Secretary of Commerce, Acting Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks A G E N D A SCHEDULE SPEAKER PAGE 1. Sharon Marsh, Administrator for Trademark Policy and Procedure....... 3 2. Nikki Daruwala, Social Research Analyst, Calvert Group, Bethesda, Maryland............................. 7 3. Mamie Rupnicki, Tribal Chairwoman, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation....... 11 4. Melody L. McCoy, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund.......... 23 5. William Lockard, Attorney, O'Donnell & Schaefer, Los Angeles................ 34 6. Ambassador Charles W. Blackwell, The Chickasaw Nation..................... 52 7. Professor Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York............ 60 8. Michael D. Hobbs, Jr., Attorney for Mohawk Carpet Corporation, Troutman Sanders, LLP......................... 79 9. Gary Brouse, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility............. 102 10. Michael Haine, Director, National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media................................ 118 11. Thomas Brooks, Gadsby and Hannah, for the International Trademark Association (INTA)................... 135 12. Robert Goff.......................... 148 13. E. Leonard Rubin, The University of Illinois, Gordon & Glickson, LLC..... 162 P R O C E E D I N G S 1. SHARON MARSH MS. MARSH: I think it's about nine, and we'll go ahead and get started. Good morning, all. I am the Administrator for Trademark Policy and Procedure. To my left is Debbie Cohn who is an Administrator for Trademark Operations, and to my right is Eleanor Meltzer who is a staff attorney in our Office of Legislative and International Affairs and has put in an enormous amount of work to put this event together this morning, and we're really grateful for her efforts. On behalf of both the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, we would like to welcome you this morning and thank you very much for your interest in today's hearing. As you may already know, due to the efforts of Senator Bingaman who is one of the senators representing the State of New Mexico, Congress last fall passed a law which requires the Patent and Trademark Office to study a variety of issues surrounding the trademark protection for the official insignia of federally and/or state recognized Native American tribes, and at the end of September, we will submit a report to Congress on our findings. We have solicited public comments by publishing two notices in the Federal Register, one on December 29, 1998, the other on March 16, 1999, and we received quite a few responses to both of those notices; however our acting commissioner, Todd Dickinson, as well as our staff, thought it was important to also hold public hearings on this issue. The hearing today is the third and final public hearing in a series that began last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico and continued in San Francisco. We received a great deal of useful information at those hearings and look forward to your comments today. We are here to listen and to learn from you about the issues involved in trademark protection for the official insignia of Native American tribes. Before we get started, though, I wanted to take just a minute or two to tell you a little about what we're doing at the PTO currently to safeguard the intellectual property rights of Native Americans. The PTO is not a law enforcement agency like the FBI or U.S. Customs. So we don't send out the trademark police if a wrongdoer infringes someone else's trademark. Instead, we have the more limited role of examining and registering trademarks, as well as examining and granting patents, but our trademark act has a particular provision in it that explicitly prohibits registration of marks that might be disparaging or that might subject a false association between the applicant and the person, group, or thing identified in the mark. As a result, the office does refuse to register many marks incorporating the names or symbols of Native American tribes. Since, I think, about 1994, all trademark applications that contain the name of tribes, recognizable likenesses of Native Americans, symbols perceived as being Native American in origin, and any other application which the office believes suggests an association with Native Americans are examined by one examining attorney who has become an expert in this area. We also have several other systems in place to safeguard against the wrong party obtaining trademark rights on something to which they're not entitled. We have something called the letter of protest procedure where a third party, if during the examination of an application they can submit evidence to show that the term or the symbol is unregisterable, we also have an opposition and cancellation procedure. All of those things help to ensure that trademark registrations are issued in accordance with the trademark act. So that was, in a nutshell, an overview of the role of the PTO in protecting the intellectual property rights of Native Americans. Before we get started, I'm going to turn the floor over to Eleanor who has few housekeeping items. MS. MELTZER: Oh, Sharon, thank you very much, and thank you all for being here this morning and for your patience in corresponding with the office. We've scheduled everybody for 15 minutes, and, please, I will let you know when you're about 10 minutes into your testimony. I'll let you know when you have about five minutes left. When you come up to the table, could we ask you to state your name and your affiliation for the record so that our court reporter, Cathy Crump, can capture all that information for the record. And if there's any time left after all the scheduled people have testified, if anyone has additional remarks or would like to speak from the floor, then we'll take comments at that time. Thank you very much, Sharon. MS. MARSH: Our first speaker is Nikki Daruwala who should come forward and take the floor. Nikki is a social research analyst with the Calvert Group in Bethesda, Maryland. 2. NIKKI DARUWALA MS. DARUWALA: Thank you. Hello. Good morning. My name is Nikki Daruwala, and I represent the Calvert Group, a leading socially responsible investment firm located in Bethesda, Maryland. Calvert's socially responsible investment practices are based on the belief that caring for our natural environment and recognizing the importance of human dignity are essential to the long-term health and well-being of our increasingly interdependent world. We express our thanks to the commission and the staff of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for this opportunity to provide our comments in response to the statutorily required study of Public Law 105.330 surrounding trademark protection for the official insignia of federally and/or state recognized native American tribes. We would like to address the Issue No. 4 as stated in the Federal Register notice June 3, 1999. It is our understanding that the Patent and Trademark Office does not currently protect Native American tribal insignia including names and logos. It is our belief that this lack of legal protection has resulted in tremendous harm to the Native American community and to American society as a whole. The manipulation and blatant misuse of Native American imagery is visible on a daily basis within our society. These includes the use of Crazy Horse label apparel, the Washington Redskins football team, and the Indians and Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland baseball franchises. These logos and the negative images associated with their use are marketing ploys used by corporations and sporting industry to promote and sustain racism within society. Contrary to corporate and industry belief, these images in no way promote or honor the Indian community. Calvert Group supports the notion of positive portrayals of all individuals and ethnic groups, furthermore, actively supports the rights of Native Americans to influence and control traditional, cultural and religious symbols. We object to the use of mascots, logos, symbols, and other tribal insignia that portray Native Americans in a negative light and promote racism and bigotry within our society. Despite repeated public opposition by numerous reputable Native American organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians and the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, the unauthorized use of Native American imagery and logos, symbols, and mascots remains prominent. It is Calvert's firm belief that public awareness and education are critical to the advancement of fair and accurate portrayals of Native Americans, their cultures, histories, and traditions. We believe that the Patent and Trademark Office has an important role to play in this effort. The government agency's business statement as stated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is as follows: For over 200 years, the basic role of the Patent and Trademark Office has remained the same, to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive rights of their respective discoveries. The cultural heritage and traditions of native people should be afforded the same protections under the law. By allowing corporations and sporting organizations to use unauthorized Native American insignia as part of their marketing efforts, the Patent and Trademark Office is, in fact, sanctioning this infringement with the government seal of approval. We thank you for the opportunity to comment. MS. MARSH: Thank you. 3. MAMIE RUPNICKI MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Mamie Rupnicki. MS. RUPNICKI: I usually don't need a mike. Good morning. Thank you. My name is Mamie Rupnicki. I'm chairwoman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi and speaking on behalf of my tribe. Perhaps you need to know a little bit of history of it. We come from around the Great Lakes, but due to the infringement of farmers, settlers, we were forced to move to the State of Kansas. So, therefore, we have been there since 1834. The main thing that I'm looking at, and I didn't want to read my testimony for the simple reason it's long. It's tedious, and that means I know absolutely nothing about what I'm talking. So what I want to do is kind of opt out what is in my testimony, and I also request that my full written testimony be entered into record along with our logo, the resolution, and a portion of the minutes where we adopted the logo. Current trademark law disallows registrations of trademarks that consist or comprise a flag or a coat of arms, insignia of the United States, of any state, and its all recognized everywhere. No one is allowed to use without proper approvement [sic]. There is no similar protection for tribal official insignia. Right now the function of the trademarks are to indicate the origin of goods to provide and guarantee a quality, and that's the purpose of your trademark law. The problem that the tribes are facing now is the unauthorized use of our trademark. Anything dealing with the Indian Nation is a insult, major insult to the tribes themselves. We are very close, connected, and hopefully we have something in place that will protect us. It also, at some point in time, creates confusions as to tribe supports are associated with the product or service being promoted. Unauthorized use of tribal insignia by non-tribal entities and commerce and the lack of adequate protection against this practice under current trademark law takes advantage of the identity of tribes without restoring any of the profits or benefits for use of insignia of the prescribes. The PTO must be reminded that many tribes consist of the poorest Americans and that most official tribal insignia have religious meaning for the tribes. Unauthorized use of our insignia for profit by someone else is an affront to our sovereignty, culture, and well being. I won't go through what out logo says about us. It's very religious. It has high meaning, and I would not care to discuss the meaning of. The need for heightened protection in light of the aforementioned tribal sovereignty and the federal trust responsibility, federal trademark law must provide stronger protection against unauthorized use of tribes' official insignia. Many tribes have consistently been recognized as distinct, independent, political communities qualified to exercise powers of self-government, and the United States Constitution categories tribes with other sovereigns for purposes of commerce related functions. When it empowered Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations along with several states and with Indian tribes, U.S. Constitution Article one, Section 8, Clause 3 stipulates this. The sovereignty of tribes have been recognized by the federal government and at best should be recognized and protected in its trademark law. Federal trademark law should at least provide the same amount of protection if not more to Indian tribes for the unauthorized use of their official insignia as it does for other sovereigns. The federal trust responsibility actually calls for heightened protection of the interest of Indian tribes over that of other sovereigns. The trust responsibility requires that the federal government act in a manner that furthers the best interests of the tribes. As an office of the federal government, the PTO must honor the federal trust responsibility owed to tribal governments by instituting protections against the unauthorized use of tribal official insignia, and I'll make my suggested changes. We support, the Prairie Band supports and incorporates by reference the suggested changes to the current federal trademark law by the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians in its April 30, 1999 comments to the PTO. The law should preserve the ability of tribes to register the flags, coat of arms, and official insignia, but the law should be amended to prohibit the registration or use of this insignia or simulations thereof unless the tribe authorizes such registration or use, and the way that the tribes--the way that our tribe operates is to do it by resolution. That is a law within our tribe, and everything must be included for that use. Further, trademarks consisting of or compromising tribal official insignia registered before the enactment of this amendment should be cancelled immediately upon the amendment becoming law. If a trademark owner can prove that the tribe authorized its use of the insignia, then such trademark would not be subject to cancellation. Only those persons who have deliberately used the official insignia of a tribe or a simulation thereof without the tribe's authority would be affected by such a cancellation provision. Definition of a tribal official insignia should include flags, coats of arms, seals, and other emblems of tribal governmental authority. It should be defined as any symbol used by a tribe to signify its identity or any symbol identified by the tribal government as official. Merely banning third party registration of marks identical to a tribal official insignia is not enough to fully protect a tribe's interest. The law must also band simulation thereof. I believe, also, that at some point in time when we are putting these amendments to the--when we are looking at PTO, that there should be a separate piece to where we have a federal line as into the Federal Register, these are all the federally-recognized tribes. These are their insignias. These are their logos. These are their flags, and I believe that's the main thing. As United States has its stars and stripes, everywhere they go they say, Well, that's United States. We as tribes also use that and recognize it within other tribes as our logo. But it's the Non-Indian or the commercial or the corporation who misuse. So that's what I would be looking at. The Prairie Band contents that the administrative feasibility should not be an issue when discussing how the general government will honor its trust responsibility to the Indian Nation. In addressing this concern, however, we believe that the PTO will not be unduly burdened by the changes to trademark laws suggested in this testimony. The PTO is equipped to handle these tasks without undue burden. The impacts on the PTO prohibiting new registrations and use of tribal official insignia by unauthorized third parties would be minimal. Indian tribes would be significantly benefitted by prohibiting new registrations and use of tribal official insignia by unauthorized parties. It would provide the protection they deserve under federal trademark law. The only persons who would be negatively affected by such changes to federal trademark law are those who currently use tribal official insignia without the tribe's permission for their commercial gain, and those people should be prevented from co-opting our symbols regardless of the burden or cost of obtaining a trademark or proving that the tribe did indeed authorize their use of the insignia. The burden should not be on the tribes which have limited resources to police the federal trademark register and file proceedings against all instances of unauthorized use and misappropriation. On behalf of the Prairie Band, I want to thank you for this opportunity to participate in the process to better protect tribal official insignia. It is a problem that must be remedied. Failure to do so erodes our sovereignty, offends our history, culture, and religion. MS. MARSH: Thank you. Just one question. MS. RUPNICKI: Yes. MS. MARSH: Did you say that you included in your written materials a copy of your insignia? MS. RUPNICKI: Yes. MS. MARSH: Does that include all insignia that you think would be-- MS. RUPNICKI: This is the only one pertinent. MS. MARSH: Okay. MS. RUPNICKI: Because it's drafted on our--it's drafted on our stationery, and it's drafted on official resolutions, and when someone wishes to see our minutes, sometimes we incorporate it there too. MS. MARSH: That will be useful to us. Even under our--as I mentioned, under our current law, there are sometimes provisions of the statute that prohibit registration of insignia such as this, and we have a problem in the office with just being knowledgeable about recognizing insignia, and so we can use this. MS. RUPNICKI: Well, my problem is that I'm really not clear on the process that you use, and I think a majority of the tribes are unclear of a process. I feel that if information could go out to the tribes and be disseminated out amongst them, that they're aware of it. I feel at a disadvantage. I'm the only tribal leader here, but I'm very interested because of the different little blurbs that are coming out about using the Indian in their little comedy-type sketches and whatever else goes along with it; and the way I feel, if it was a black individual, they'd be on top of it, but we're not that many that we can hold major things to where we can get it done. If there were more of us, perhaps we would be able to and our vote counted where it should be. Then I think we would be able to do something, but as it stands now, we are at a point of maybe four million people, very small. Although I don't claim to be a minority, we are still small nations within this nation, and I think that process needs to be recognized. But if you need my help on drafting some of this, I have no problem doing it. MS. COHN: Sharon mentioned in her introductory marks we have a letter of protest procedure that probably not many people are familiar with, and that allows a third party such as yourself, at no cost, to file a protest with the office supplying evidence that we may not otherwise have access to as to why this mark shouldn't be registered, the fact that it's a religious insignia or some type of symbol, and this gives you the opportunity to educate the office if you feel that we're ignoring a very important aspect of a certain tribe. MS. RUPNICKI: I think the other information that I would probably need is just how do I go about doing this. MS. MARSH: Well, for the letter of protest procedure that Debbie mentioned-- MS. RUPNICKI: I can protest it all. MS. MARSH: We have to be aware that-- MS. RUPNICKI: Yes, it's coming in. MS. MARSH: It sounds like you would advocate a procedure, setting in place a procedure for tribes to submit to the PTO-- MS. RUPNICKI: Yes. MS. MARSH: --their insignia and sacred symbols. MS. RUPNICKI: And maybe get a little newsletter out, Okay, this is coming out. This is what we're looking at. A large majority of the government agencies, we usually get something to that effect, and this is coming up and whatever. Okay. MS. MARSH: Thank you. MS. RUPNICKI: Thank you. I appreciate it. 4. MELODY L. MCCOY MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Melody McCoy. MS. MCCOY: Good morning. My name is Melody McCoy. I'm a staff attorney with the native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm here today on behalf of one of the Native American Rights Fund's clients, the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians who are located in east central California. And the Native American Rights Fund is a national non-profit legal defense fund for American Indian tribes. We're very interested in this issue about trademark law and tribal official insignia because we represent the Tuolumne Band on better protections whether by means of tribal or federal law for all of their intellectual property. So this caught our attention last October as a very timely step in this area. I appreciate this opportunity to address the Patent and Trademark Office this morning on the statutorily- required study. The tribe has already submitted written comments in February and in April in response to the agency's notices, and we're very pleased that federal law may extend trademark protection to tribal official insignia. My comments today will focus on the legal and policy reasons, how we suggest this extension be accomplished. Federal law, of course, recognizes trademarks as a form of intellectual property, and at present there are few federal laws that specifically protect the intellectual property of American Indian, Alaskan native tribes, but there should be federal laws, and there can be, I think especially in this really specific and focused area of tribal official insignia. At least since the United States Constitution was adopted, federal law has recognized that Indian tribes are separate sovereign governments, and under current trademark law, the official insignia and flags of other sovereign governments--that would be the federal government, the states, foreign nations--cannot be registered. That is viewed as good because the non-registrability of the insignia and flags prevents exclusive use by anyone of the official insignia and flags of the federal government, the states, and the foreign nations. Congress has wisely chosen to preclude this exclusive use of governmental authority emblems. So it might be easy to say that all that needs to be done is to add tribes to this list of sovereigns. Tribes are sovereigns just like the other governments, and they should have the same protections as the others regarding their official insignia. I call this the "parity theory" by which Congress would simply be correcting an oversight or an omission and putting tribes on a par with the other governments. This is an attractive option and one that would be completely justifiable. The tribe here, however, has suggested another approach and one which we also believe is justifiable. Our suggested approach is this: Since there is now to prohibition on the registrability of tribal official insignia or flags under federal trademark law, anyone, including the tribes themselves, can register their official insignia provided that all the other requirements are met. We suggest that this registrability for tribal official insignia be preserved but that it should be made exclusive to tribes. And I'll explain the justification for this approach in a minute, but let me first make clear that our suggested exclusive right for tribes to register their official insignia is not the one-way street in favor of tribes that it may seem. This is largely because we suggest that the definition of tribal official insignia be very narrow. It should follow the definition that the Patent and Trademark Office and the courts have developed when determining the official insignia of the federal governments, the states, and the foreign nations. That means it would be only those emblems, devices, which represent governmental authority such as seals and flags. Most tribes, in fact, already have an official seal or a flag that they have developed according to their own internal procedures, whether that's a political process or a religious process or some other established form of the tribe. They've been using this regularly for governmental purposes. A critical part of our suggested approach is that tribal official insignia should consist of words plus graphic elements. Words alone, including tribal names, should not be considered tribal official insignia. Again, this is consistent with how the official insignia of other governments have been defined, and it eliminates the controversial issue of whether tribal names in and of themselves should be eligible for trademark registrability. This, to me, really is a parity issue. It's not unique to tribes. The names of states are not in and of themselves considered the official insignia of states for trademark law. Neither should tribal names in and of themselves be considered tribal official insignia. We suggest, however, that trademark law and other federal law generally be reviewed to see what if any protections tribal names in and of themselves are warranted. For this purpose, though, the official insignia, the official insignia of tribes, should be distinctive, just like, again, the official insignia of the other sovereign governments. The reasonable equivalences of tribal official insignia, like reasonable equivalences of non-tribal governments, should be protected. I think this is going to avoid the situation where a tribe, for example, as the official insignia of, you know, three arrows and a quiver and, you know, a non-tribal entity attempts to use four arrows and a quiver or something like that. Reasonable likenesses should be protected. I think the Patent and Trademark Office is very familiar with that kind of issue. It comes up all the time. We suggest that Congress direct the Patent and Trademark Office to establish a separate dedicated registry of tribal official insignia. Since tribal official insignia are somewhat new to the Patent and Trademark Office, this data base would be really useful for all interested parties, tribes, non-tribal entities, even the other governments. However, presence on the registry would not in and of itself provide positive trademark rights for tribes. There we're going to need some amendments to the law to obtain the positive trademark rights. Tribal official insignia, once on the registry, would then need to be registered as a trademark just like any other trademark, but we suggest that the law provide that in the future tribal official insignia can only be registered by tribes unless the tribe consents otherwise. In addition, any tribal official insignia that happened to have been registered or used by third parties without tribal consent as of the date of the law should be subject to cancellation or infringement proceedings. Now, this exclusive right regarding the registrability of tribal official insignia is, again, treating tribes a little bit different than the other sovereigns because we're not going to have the complete ban on--we don't suggest the complete ban of registrability of tribal official insignia, but we think our exclusive right suggestion is justified first and foremost by the legal relationship which is unique between the United States and Indian nations. The federal recognized sovereignty of tribes expressed so many time in so many ways by Congress is really important for the Patent and Trademark Office to understand in executing this study because tribal sovereignty is going to be the basis by which Congress is going to address this matter. Our suggested approach is also justified because of the very narrow definition of tribal official insignia that we pose mitigates and eliminates any negative impact on third parties, and negative impacts could also be minimized by the traditional forms of patent and trademark law defenses that they could be able to show tribal consent as a defense to cancellation. It would provide for a fair use that is a non-commercial education type of use defense to infringement claims. That's our approach. The Native American Rights Fund and the tribe thank you for this opportunity to testify today on this important matter. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions or provide further information to help you. MS. MARSH: I just had one question. You said prior registrations would be suggest cancellation. So would you envision that there would be a burden on the affected tribe to bring a cancellation proceeding through our current mechanism rather than just a blanket when the law is enacted the registration cancels? MS. MCCOY: I guess I hadn't really thought about that myself. I'm not sure how it works outside the area of Indian law. You know, generally when something--like the Redskins decision simply cancelled that trademark protection for that, but that was after voluminous evidence. MS. MARSH: Right. MS. MCCOY: What's the norm in trademark law when something is cancelled? MS. MARSH: The normal procedure is that an interested party has to affirmatively bring a cancellation proceeding to our office, and then the parties have a chance to, you know, debate the issue, and then a decision is made on the merits. MS. MCCOY: One thing that occurs to me--it doesn't answer your question, but I'm having trouble imagining that a non-tribal party has registered what I would call a true tribal official insignia at this point without it being the tribe or an entity thereof. But let's say as a practical matter it might not be such an issue. The other thing is I'd be happy to provide an answer to this at a later time, but I'm thinking that if in this instance if proper notice is given through the development of this law before it's enacted, I don't see why immediately upon enactment of the law that they shouldn't be subject to cancellation, and the burden should be on the non- tribal party to show that they have the authorization. Because I think that's what we're really looking for. If people want to use an official--if a non-tribal party wants to use an official tribal insignia, they should have the consent of the tribe, you know, so that they can work out among their own the kind of commercial recompense or royalties or whatever they want from that, and the tribe should be free to license that, but it shouldn't be that the tribe has to establish that you've misappropriated our seal. MS. MARSH: Thank you. MS. MCCOY: Thanks. MS. MARSH: One more question. MS. MELTZER: Thank you very much. In your remarks, you mentioned that the official insignia should not be eligible for registration by others unless the tribe consents. My understanding is that currently licensees, that is authorized parties, are not eligible to register the mark. Only the true owner of the mark is eligible. Would you suggest an exception to the current state of law so that licensees, authorized users of official insignia of native American tribes, would be eligible for registration of those marks? MS. MCCOY: I'm trying to think of what they would get by registration as opposed to the license itself. It seems to me it would be governed by that. I guess, again, I hadn't picked that one apart so much. My intuition is that if--is that the registrability should be allowed. I just think, again, in a practical sense it's rare that the tribe is going to license its official seal to anyone to be registered. They're going to want to hold on to the registrability of that. So probably then they should have the registrability. If the same benefits to the tribe in terms of licenses can be accomplished just through licensing, then I would say stick with that. MS. MARSH: Thank you. 5. WILLIAM LOCKARD MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Mr. William Lockard. MR. LOCKARD: Good morning. My name is William Lockard. I'm an attorney practicing in Los Angeles, California. I'm appearing today to set forth concerns I have as an intellectual property practitioner and academic with the suggestion that Native American tribes be granted trademark or trademark-like rights in their official insignia. First, let me set forth by background in the field. As I said, I'm an attorney licensed to practice in California. I've been an intellectual property practitioner for the last 10 years, concentrating in copyright and trademark issues. I've served as a vice president of legal affairs at Fox, Inc., which is the parent company for Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Broadcasting, and for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., which is the parent for MGM, United Artists and Orion. I'm currently of counsel with the firm of O'Donnell & Schaefer in Los Angeles. For the last several years I've also served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Southern California Law School where I teach classes in copyright and intellectual--sorry--internet law. I have a number of concerns, some of which are academic, some of which are practical about the suggested enactment of the rules concerning Native American insignia. Starting with the more conceptual problems, my concerns, I think, are based on the idea or flow from the fact that trademarks are monopolies. They're limited monopolies which are granted by the government in order to achieve certain other goals. Normally, monopolies are disfavored in law, but with the trademark law, we grant monopolies, limited monopolies in order to achieve goals concerning unfair competition and consumer fraud and deceit protection. Because they're monopolies, I think we need to watch carefully to make sure that those monopolies are not granted in a broader way than they need to be to achieve the limited goals that we have. As a result, in the trademark law of the United States, trademarks are limited in terms of time, in terms of subject matter scope, and at times in terms of geographic scope. Somewhat elegantly, I think, in the law, all of these limitations are achieved through the simple application of a use requirement. Trademark law requires use in order for trademark rights to be generated. This use requirement has the additional effect of letting the limitations be moderated as trademark use continues without the need for additional involvement, other judicial or administrative involvement. So trademark right expands and more importantly contracts when the monopoly needs to because the use has been reduced. It's a concern, therefore, to talk of creating trademark rights which don't have a use requirement attached to them. Indeed, I think that the use requirement is so central to really the whole concept of trademark that really we're not talking about trademark rights. We're talking about what I'd like to refer to as supertrademarks, trademarks that are really governmental charters that are grants of rights directly from the government rather than trademark rights. Now, those kind of grants are not inherently evil, and the government has made such grants in the past. Groups such as the United States Olympic Committee, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, the American Red Cross, all have been granted statutorily exclusive rights to use their emblems and names. Whether or not you agree with those grants and the appropriateness of those kind of--those particular grants, I think there are distinctions to be drawn with the grants that have--the grants that exist--the grants of supertrademark rights that exist in the law versus the kind of grants that are looked for here. Generally, the grants that exist in the law to date which are few in number are grants to organizations which are clearly charitable organizations, and they relate to marks which were already exclusive to those groups and which were identified commonly, I think, by the public even prior to the grant of rights with those groups. Here, we have a different situation, I believe. With regard to Native American tribes, while they certainly have at times a charitable aspect to them, they are very complicated organizations. They are political organizations. They're economic organizations. They're cultural organizations. So they don't have the same identity that supertrademarks have previously had. In addition, the kind of marks that are potentially going to be protected under this law are not necessarily marks which are familiar to the public and which are related already in the public's mind to some extent exclusively with the tribes. The world is full of emblems and symbols which have been and which continue to be of central cultural importance to the original group in which they were created. The plays of Shakespeare, the pyramids, the Coliseum, Mount Fuji, the Star of David, Wagner's Ring Cycle, the Liberty Bell are all important and vibrant elements of their native cultures. It would be literally impossible, I think, to list, let alone to grant rights to the important emblems of each of the many groups that exist in our society. Moreover, these emblems and insignia exist independent of any grant of governmental rights. They maintain their vibrancy and power without such protection, and there doesn't appear to me to be any distinction with warrants, particularly warrants treating the insignia of Native American tribes differently. Moving away from the conceptual and academic, there are some practical issues, I think, in terms of granting these rights. Obviously, there's a complication that is added when you add any mark to the register, when you add any particular group of marks to the register. There are higher costs. There are higher searching costs. There are higher costs in terms of a greater number of potential marks which are going to be knocked off by things that are on the register, but I think this cost is even higher than it appears on the face in that supertrademark rights are very broad and far reaching. It's essentially equivalent of a grant of rights in all classes for all goods and all services. When I deal with supertrademarks in practice, I find it difficult to advise a client on how to proceed when a potential mark of the client may conflict with or potentially may conflict with a supertrademark. While you can draw distinctions, there is a real fear that the kind of rights that are granted, that have been granted with supertrademark are so broad that you are likely to run into a real risk of a claim, which has its own costs regardless of whether you win, and of a loss on the merits in court, particularly given that a court is likely to be strongly influenced by the grant of a supertrademark by Congress, by the congressional determination that these kind of trademarks should be granted broad rights. Because clients are generally risk adverse, and the clearance issue is one of evaluating risk, the effect is- -to me, the effect of this is that when the supertrademark is implicated in the search, the tendency is simply to back away from it altogether and to move on to a different mark which really grants these supertrademarks an even greater penumbra of rights than they are by the broad statutes that they have. As a result of this, there's sort of a series of black holes in the area of trademarks, areas that you just avoid because you're going to get sucked in and destroyed by them. Right now, those are limited. There's a small number of supertrademarks. I think when we talk about the enactment of rights in the tribal insignia, we're adding a vastly large number of supertrademarks with which people have to be concerned, and we're creating a vastly large number of these black holes that create serious problems in terms of developing and creating new trademarks in the commercial world. Internationally, I think there's an issue to be concerned with. Some others, I think in the submissions, have raise the question of making sure, of course, that we were in compliance with all existing treaty obligations of the United States. Obviously, that needs to be a concern. At the same time, I think there's a concern with regard to the potential future problems in trade negotiations that the grant of rights might create. Over the last several years the question of whether and how to protect the interests of indigenous peoples in traditional works or materials has become more prominent throughout the world. Regardless of your particular stand of the appropriateness of U.S. protection of Native American insignia, it's clear that the protection of materials of indigenous peoples has the potential to cause substantial international trade problems. By way of example, consider the possibility that Greece passes a law saying that no one may make commercial use of the words Apollo or Nike or that Germany decides to revive copyright protection for traditional folk tales in the forms of Snow White and Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel and other Grimms fairy tales or even that Japan bans the importation of rice, not based on trade protectionism, at least not purportedly, but rather under the idea that it's protecting traditional farming methods that are culturally important to Japan. In each of these cases U.S. commercial interests are certainly implicated, and the U.S. government will certainly be called upon to intervene diplomatically. I think what we need to be concerned is that it will be particularly difficult for the U.S. government to act in these cases if, indeed, the United States Government was one of the first countries to move ahead to protect the rights or to grant special rights or extraordinary protections to its own native indigenous peoples. We ran into a similar problem, I think in the eighties, with regard to copyright where the copyright industries were very concerned about problems in trademark and the copyright laws of other countries. They came to the Commerce Department, asked the U.S. trade representative to intervene with particular countries who were a particular problem, and the response of those countries was how can the United States come and tell us how to write our copyright law when, in fact, the United States is not a signatory to the primary international copyright convention, does not keep up to what are the accepted international standards in copyright law, and now you're coming and telling us that we should change our copyright law. And that's a powerful argument, and it's difficult to respond to, and it gives foreign governments a strong basis to object to the diplomatic intervention of the United States. The last issue I want to discuss is a sort of overall issue which is a question of the relative benefit and costs. First, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Native American groups are fully entitled to protection under the existing trademark laws and, in fact, make use of that to some extent. Those protections, as have been discussed here this morning, extend to more than just registration of marks. They also provide protection for unregistered marks and protection against the disparaging use of insignia and trademarks, whether or not the complaining party has trademark rights of that insignia. The recent decision in Harjo v. Pro-Football makes it clear that this is a meaningful and enforceable right. So in many of the most important ways, these insignia are already well protected. Second, it's not clear when you work through the analysis what tangible benefit the protection of Native American insignia would actually offer to native American tribes. So the direct use of these insignia in commerce or in trade or as tribal symbols is protected, is already protected under the law. The suggestion that there should be protection for these insignia across the board in all classes and pertaining to any mark which has a likelihood of confusion with those symbols, I think is unrealistic and potentially disastrous given that a number of these symbols, emblems, are likely to be more simple designs which is not possible to really pull out of the public domain and give exclusive rights to, which means you're left with the possibility of granting rights, exclusive rights to insignia only to the extent that they're not--that they're copied exactly, which means realistically any potential user will simply make the necessary changes to make certain that the emblem that they want to use is not an exact duplication of the insignia. Again, I don't think that this ultimately results in a net benefit or a strong net benefit to the Native American peoples. Clearly, as a philosophical and political matter, protection for Native American insignia has substantial meaning, but it's difficult to measure against the commercial considerations, but the insignia and cultural emblems have a wide range of other entities, and groups within our society also holding substantial meaning and protection of these insignia and emblems from disparagement and offensive and commercial use is inappropriate--I'm sorry- -is appropriate and already available in the law. I think offering extraordinary protection to any of these insignia or emblems creates little meaningful additional benefit while inflicting a substantial practical and financial cost on the public domain, governmental resources, and the commercial marketplace. Thank you. MS. MARSH: So you have no problem, though, with the existing provisions of the Lanham Act on disparaging marks, marks that create a false association with a particular tribe? MR. LOCKARD: No. In fact, I think that adds to the balance that you need in the law, both to protect tribal insignia and the important emblems of any group in society. MS. MARSH: And you wouldn't object to the PTO making a greater effort to become educated about what these native insignia are so that we can identify them when they're the subject of applications? MR. LOCKARD: Certainly not. Education is always good. MS. MARSH: Yes. MR. LOCKARD: Knowledge is power. MS. MARSH: Yes. Do you guys have anything? MS. MELTZER: I have one question. MS. MARSH: Okay. MS. MELTZER: Mr. Lockard, you mentioned that many groups within our society have insignia and cultural emblems that are important to them. Could you discuss, just briefly, if there's any distinction with Native Americans given the U.S Government's trust relationship with Native American groups? MR. LOCKARD: It's not a question I've thought about. Obviously, that is an additional consideration. I believe that to the extent there is some additional duty on the part of the United States Government to act as a fiduciary, to consider the needs of its trustee, the overall considerations about the benefits and the burdens don't evaporate. They still exist, and I think ultimately when you go through the analysis, you say, well, while there may be some additional push to put this provision in the law, it's still outweighed by the practical concerns and by the cost to society and particularly when you consider the limited actual benefit that the Native American tribes may receive from it. MS. COHN: I have a question. In the last part of your remarks, you talked about, I think, your fear is that an insignia may contain a certain element that is commonly used in other marks. MR. LOCKARD: Yes. MS. COHN: I'll use a feather as an example, and your fear is that nobody will be able to use a feather in any other form outside of that insignia? MR. LOCKARD: I don't think it's quite that extreme, although obviously at its most extreme, that would be a concern. I think the concern is if we look at this from the standard trademark point of use and apply a likelihood of confusion analysis, you end up in a situation where the number of marks that are potentially knocked out is very large, particularly if the protected insignia do not- -are not particularly complicated and don't have particularly strong identifying elements of their own. MS. COHN: Well, isn't that true with any mark? MR. LOCKARD: It's true with any mark, but it's not--but this is where we run into the use problem. When we're dealing with a supertrademark, and you're saying essentially you have rights in this insignia in classes one through forty-two for all goods and for all services and saying now we're going to apply a likelihood of confusion analysis, we're banning a remarkably large number of potential marks and taking, really, an usually large number of potential marks out of the public domain, to what I think is limited benefit. MS. COHN: But of course that rationale would not apply to a Section 2(a), False Association Analysis; right? You're not opposed to having that available? MR. LOCKARD: No, no, and I think that may be an appropriate route to take, is to say that to the extent that people are clearly using a mark in order to get an association with a particular tribe, it may be appropriate to put in some kind of requirement as well in order to avoid inadvertent infringement and the kind of traps that fall-- the trap of falling into an inadvertent infringement. MS. COHN: That's not currently in Section 2(a). MR. LOCKARD: No, but it currently is applied to some of the other supertrademarks that are in the law. There is some kind of knowingness or intentional requirement. MS. COHN: Thank you. MR. LOCKARD: Thanks. 6. AMBASSADOR CHARLES W. BLACKWELL MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Ambassador Charles Blackwell. AMBASSADOR BLACKWELL: Good morning. My name is Charles Blackwell. I am the Chickasaw Nation Ambassador to the United States of America, a lawyer and a schoolteacher by training and a diplomat by trade. I come to you this morning on behalf of the 40,000 members of the Chickasaw Nation and Governor Anoatubby to speak to you generally on a policy level. I want the record to be clear, and I want the record to reflect that I am Chickasaw. I am a lawyer, but I am not an intellectual property expert. Having grown up and been raised in Indian country in South Dakota and New Mexico and Oklahoma, I fully see that, as a matter of policy, there's probably a great need for a heightened level of awareness of the trust responsibility as it applies to American Indian tribal governments, American Indian, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian tribal governments and through which the individual rights of American Indian, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian citizens are further refined and protected under the trust relationship, and it is protection which indeed is what we're talking about. This was dramatically brought home to me some years ago when I first moved to Washington and took myself to an upscale carryout gourmet place to buy food to take home, and on the floor was a large basket filled with the packages of Chickasaw Chips, the dirty chip, the dirty potato chip. My first thought was that maybe we had begun-- unbeknownst to me, maybe the tribe had begun to manufacture and produce and market and sell potato chips. I picked up a package and looked at it, and they were being done in Memphis, Tennessee by a company who had-- was not owned by the tribe, had no affiliation with the tribe, and after I spoke with them, which I took the initiative to do, weren't aware of the fact that the tribe still even existed. Like many Non-Indians in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, and Georgia, they think that after the removal, the tribe went away which meant that we perished. We haven't. The Chickasaw Nation is alive and well and functioning very happily in former Indian territory, now the State of Oklahoma. So Chickasaw chips, the dirty chip, inspired me both as a lawyer and as diplomat to begin to increase my awareness of this. My personal dedication is to assisting you on behalf--and the federal government in taking a good look at this process. We're especially grateful to Senator Bingaman and Senator Campbell and our champions in the Congress who assist you in this matter as well. I submit for the record my written testimony, and I will point out, though, that perhaps a further discussion or further review of the trust responsibility, the federal trust relationship of American Indian tribal governments is appropriate. As domestic sovereign nations, we are not covered by any particular law. We are--our status is embodied, in fact, indeed, in the commerce clause of the Constitution, is where it begins, further affirmed by the-- by acts of Congress, by Supreme Court decisions, by executive orders. We are unique in the scheme of things. For those who are uninformed, perhaps to look on us in some way as comparable to the states, we have citizens that we're responsible for. We have land that we oversee. We have inherent sovereign powers to determine the rights of our membership, to exclude those from our lands whom we would not have there, and to choose our own forms of government, and to present to the world our identity; and it is in the intellectual property area that is this identification of the symbols and emblems of our governments. The Chickasaw Nation has a seal. The Chickasaw Nation has a name. The Chickasaw Nation has a tribal identity, to the best of which the federal government has a fiduciary trust responsibility to assist the tribe in protecting, but prior to European contact, I would suspect, having not been there but being somewhat of a historian and being Chickasaw, I would have suspected that tribes had their marks. The Choctaws and the Creeks were traditional enemies. Their land was side by side in Georgia. To know whenever you were leaving Creek country and entering into Choctaw country was important for people to know who were not of those tribes, and there were marks along the trails. So there's a historical appreciation among the tribes themselves for their symbols of government and identity; and I'm reminded by some of the testimony today that the tribes will, as a matter of policy, be very supportive and very grateful and willing to be involved in the process to help where voids of information do exist. I would suggest that the Non-Indian literary industry, cinema industry, and others have done all they can and all they should, perhaps, and the entertainment industry, to embellish on tribal identity. In the history of this country, there have--we've gone through periods of time when American Indian tribal governments have been diminished militarily and economically. That is no longer the case and simply by our presence, 553 strong, we know that for as long as there is a United States of America, there will be American Indian tribal governments and American Indian people to deal with. So as a matter of policy, I think that lays the foundation for attention to the matter. As a practical matter, we suggested a registry of American Indian tribal government insignia. This is, we view--the insignia of individual governments, we view to be just as choosing their membership, to choose the marks to identify them as Chickasaws or Choctaws or as Crows or as Cheyennes, is an inherent sovereign right of that tribe, and it seems a little daunting, I'm sure from your side of the table, to be dealing with--to have dealt in the past with an identifiable group of organizations or states or peoples and to have 550 added to that, but we're patient people. We've been dealing with these matters for hundreds of years and however long it takes, we're willing to continue to deal with it. We would urge a beginning to be made. I support the testimony presented by the Native American Rights Fund, and as I've noted we appreciate the support and the attention of Senator Bingaman and Senator Campbell and Senator McCain and their colleagues, Senator Inouye, who are helping bring attention to this matter. In highlighting and reviewing my written testimony, we have offered suggestions on how official insignia should be identified and how we urge the Patents and Trademark Office to establish a register that embodies the trust responsibility, and whereas I would suspect--the Chickasaw Nation, and I would suspect all tribal nations governments would be interested in doing things that maintain a parity as the governments of domestic sovereign nations with other governments. And as an aside, I would say that recent attention and activity in this area only points out the need for increased awareness and sensitivity. Whenever I called the folks in Memphis to ask why they called it Chickasaw Chips, they said it had a ring to it, and they didn't think it bothered anybody, and they were somewhat surprised. I suggested to them that the Chickasaw Nation, being alive and well and having an education foundation trust fund for its young people, would appreciate contributions based on their profits, and they changed the name. So we--it's been my experience both as an attorney and as a diplomat and as a Chickasaw grandfather that if you don't--you never get kissed unless you ask. So we're asking you to address this matter, and we'd appreciate your attention. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. If you have questions, I'll be pleased to entertain them. MS. MARSH: I don't think so. Thank you. AMBASSADOR BLACKWELL: Thank you. [Q. Todd Dickinson enters the hearing at 10:15 a.m.] 7. PROFESSOR ELLEN J. STAUROWSKY MS. MARSH: Professor Staurowsky is our next speaker. PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: Is it appropriate to first express my appreciation for the fact that no one fled the room when they recognized an academic? I so appreciate that. My name is Ellen Staurowsky. I'm an associate professor of sports sociology at Ithaca College. Some of you may be wondering what sport sociology is, and it's simply sociology as it pertains to the sport industry, nothing all that glamorous. I stand before you today as a private citizen but also as an educator and someone who has been researching the issue of Native American insignia, symbols, imagery as they've been marketed and mediated by corporate entities for the past five to six years, largely in response to things that occur in my classroom and questions that my students raise. So I'm compelled from an educational perspective to look at this, and I think that's the context out of which my remarks come. So you're not going to hear me talk a lot about trademark law. In fact, I'm way out of my element on that, but I'm going to talk about the social context out of which policy decisions and legal statutes are often written. I would like to express my appreciation to the commissioner and to the staff for this opportunity to offer my comments and a special thank you to Eleanor who I've been dealing with specifically. I'm only going to address two particular points that were raised in the December Federal Register. I'm going to talk about the broader issue of the definition of the term official insignia, and then I'm also going to direct my comments to the seventh issue which had to do with other relevant factors. On its face, the prospect of formulating a definition for the term official insignia of federally and/or state recognized tribes appears to be fairly forthright. One might venture to propose, consistent with definitions as they appear in various dictionaries, "any badge of authority of honor, mark, signifier, sign or symbol that's accepted by a recognized tribe would qualify as their official insignia". At some level, that is in fact how it should be. The realities that necessitate this study testify to the fact that the matter is not nearly so simple. The long-standing history of corporate appropriation of Native American symbols, imagery, and personages in the mass marketing of consumer products throughout the century presents a significant collection of concerns that should be addressed and appreciated in the context out of which any definition emerges and will subsequently be applied. As a departure point, I would assert that heretofore the major producers, disseminators, and mediators of what is typically thought of as Native American insignia have been Corporate America and their educational institutions, not Native Americans. This realization raises serious questions about how any of us come to know what we know about Native Americans, what entities create messages that contribute to our perception of what we know about Native Americans and the extent to which we've been educated and socialized to respectfully and carefully address these issues. Conspicuously, Native American imagery serves as the basis of community identity for at least 2,500 elementary and secondary schools nationwide along with 67 colleges and universities around the country. As the most visible sign and symbol of the educational enterprises--of these educational enterprises, the imagery used in the formation of group identity, team loyalty, local rivalries, and community rallying points serves as the most consistent and systematic lesson about Native Americans or the educational landscape. Nowhere else in American society has a people's heritage and culture been so neatly, cleanly, and effectively reduced to the level of a bumper sticker than in the Native American images selected to represent our nation's youth sporting teams, wrapped in institutional authority and official sanction. It is rare that these symbols are recognized at the creations of dominant power structures to which Native Americans have traditionally had little or no access. Inattention to thoughtful inclusion of Native American history within school curricula, coupled with the reduction of Native Americans to stereotypes by our educational institutions, has served to profoundly miseducate the vast majority of Americans, Indian and Non-Indian alike. When I say Non-Indian--or when I say Indian, I refer to my students in class who comment that they have learned more about their heritage in a sports sociology class than they did throughout their former schooling, which I find to be shocking. The inherent problem this poses when confronted with the task of devising a workable definition of official insignia is illustrated in the case of the Cleveland baseball franchise. The legal protections afforded by 17 trademarks issued by the U.S. PTO support the club's ability to perpetuate stereotypes associated with the Native American community, more specifically the generic concept of an Indian and a chief. I make reference to what many people know of as Chief Wahoo. The very notion of the tribe is codified as a structural part of the organization by virtue of its registered trademark--and this is in caps--the tribe. This convergence of language and symbol, corporate financial interest, and legal protection has curiously transformed the Cleveland baseball franchise into a federally-recognized tribe. Marketing its Indian identity for profit, the club ranked second only to the New York Yankees in the sale of licensed merchandise, generating approximately $15 million in revenue from team shop and catalog sales in 1998. Comfort level with the Indian images associated with the club is exponentially increased through mass media exposure. In a four-hour telecast of a game, a viewer watching throughout will be exposed minimally to things Indian an average of 650 times, and that is when the Indians are playing as opposed to the Indians and Braves. Despite two decades of opposition from virtually every Native American group in the country to Cleveland's continued use of the Chief Wahoo logo on the grounds that it is a racist symbol, the franchise has leveraged its power of position and place in the community to persuade the public that its use of this imagery is justified, assigning--and I put this in quotes--historical significance, end quote, to the name. The franchise publishes a story in its media guides, press releases, web site, and other publications claiming that in 1915, quote, A local daily newspaper ran a contest, and the name Indian was suggested by a fan who said he was doing it in honor of an Indians player named Louis Francis Sockalexis. Tellingly, the historical claim made by the franchise significantly distorts the events that occurred in the club in 1915 and inaccurately represents Sockalexis' connection to the name. I point out the article attached which substantiates which I just said and leads you through that historical analysis. In addition to raising questions about whether the franchise has violated the conditions under which a trademark may be refused, as delineated in the Lanham Act by falsely suggesting a persons living or dead or presenting material that is deceptive, the franchise's continued use of Native American imagery replicates a pattern of distortion found frequently when these images are examined closely. Because an overwhelming amount of competing insignia already exists representative of the dominant cultures appropriation of Native American images over a prolonged period of time, attempts to define official insignia for federally and/or state recognized tribes will require the concomitant re-regulation or possible abandonment of what I call manufactured Indian-like insignia or Native American symbolic facsimiles that have become such an integral part of American consumer culture. In effect, part of the challenge at hand is clearing away of unauthentic to make room for the authentic. With that as background, I'd recommend two specific principles to be used in the formulation of the definition of official insignia. The first principle being that primacy be given to native American groups and representatives. My reason is as follows: Credibility needs to be afforded to the meanings, values, and significance of symbols, images, and persons as defined by the Native American community, not by the dominant culture. As Native American signifiers have been contested during the past three decades, there has been a tendency to poll average Americans about their opinions and viewpoints. In the case of the Washington football franchise, respondents have been asked about their attitudes regarding the term "Redskins". The Cleveland baseball franchise justified the retention of their name and logo in 1993, citing the results of a poll of fans who reported that they did not find the imagery offensive. Many of them citing the Louis Francis Sockalexis story. Most recently, there is discussion under way by the Liz Claiborne company to survey consumers about their associations with the tag line Crazy Horse. From a research methodology perspective, these inquiries may, in fact, reveal the opinions of Americans. It cannot be assumed however, that the opinions expressed are either studied or informed. I contend that these studies, for the most part, violate the fundamental research tenet of logical validity and ought to be more properly viewed as measures of the degree to which Americans are undereducated or miseducated on these issues, rather than as legitimate measures of the offensiveness of the terms or insignia in question. This tendency to reduce the verifiable documentable treatment of Native Americans to mere opinion is confronted in the dissenting opinion of Associate Chief Justice Durham of the State Supreme Court of Utah in a recent case concerning the use of the term "Redskins" on vanity motor vehicle license plates in that state. The majority opinion in McBride and Brummett v. Motor Vehicle Division of Utah in January of this year was, in fact, favorable to the Indian plaintiffs/appellants which resulted in the decision being sent back to the licensing bureau to apply a reasonable person or in this case a reasonable Indian standard in determining the offensiveness of the term. Although the decision itself was favorable to Indians, Durham points out that the majority erred by failing to declare outright that the term is offensive based on the evidence presented. He elaborated in his dissent that the majority had ignored the dictionary definitions and the historical roots of the term "Redskins" as explained by texts and articles presented in the case, dismissing all of this evidence as nothing more than opinion. Although the creation of avenues for individuals to voice and express their opinions in a free society is tremendously important, there is also an implicit and explicit expectation that cultural histories and religious traditions will be honored and respected. For too long Americans have been empowered by romantic mythologies or permitted in the absence of information to ignore the tradition and histories of Native Americans as represented in these symbols. Part of the task of devising a definition for official insignia is an understanding that it is inappropriate to selectively render certain heritages, cultures, and religions debatable while others automatically qualify for protected status. Whereas it tests their imagination to think that we would poll Americans to determine the level of offensiveness that might result if an acknowledged ritual were parodied and presented as half-time entertainment, there is little hesitation to invite anyone to comment about Native American customs, practices, and traditions, suggesting by the very asking that these are things about which Non-Indians have a right to comment upon and at liberty to discount. A stark example of this emerged in October of 1997 when the Stanford University marching band performed what they considered to be a satire of Irish culture, featuring a character called Seamus O'Hungry whose cultural heritage was depicted by a band narrator as a sparse one, consisting only of fighting rather than starving. Additionally, two band members appeared in costume as a Catholic cardinal and the devil and proceeded to engage in a mock debate wherein the fictional cardinal was portrayed as stupid and backward. Although the Stanford band has drawn upon Catholic stereotypes before in its skits during famed Notre Dame football contests as evidenced in the 1991 incident wherein a drum major donned a nun's habit and led the band while beating a crucifix on a drum, two things are notable. Apologies from Stanford University officials in both instances were immediate, and there were no generalized calls to survey or poll Americans about whether they found the behaviors offensive. In contrast, Native American religious symbols and practices such as the wearing of eagle feathers, chanting, and dancing have been held up in public display at athletic contests for the edification of fans and in turn marketed as consumer items for decades. In the process, these symbols have been routinely desecrated or distorted in service to American capitalism in a manner that would not be tolerated for any other cultural or religious group. The steps taken as a result of this study have the potential to relocate the balance of power where it should be on these issues with Native America rather than with Corporate America. I know I'm running out of time. In terms of principle number two, I'd urge that there would be a rethinking relative to persons specifically. I know that those are included in insignia, and I think that special steps need to be taken to ensure that the histories of people like the esteemed Lokota leader Crazy Horse not be appropriated for fashion. And in closing, relative to other factors, I'd urge you not only to consider feasibility and cost, but I'd also ask you to consider what kind of compelling reasons can be found by looking at what the potential benefits to this are, and most specifically I think that there are three benefits: the restoration of power and efficacy to Native Americans by returning to them control over the insignia deriving from their religious and cultural practices and beliefs; number two, the resurrection of an aspect of Native American pride diminished and undermined each time insignia are represented disrespectfully or inappropriately; and number three, the contribution to a more human and humane society, more fully informed and educated. Thank you very much. MS. MARSH: I just had one quick question. Are you then advocating cancellation of existing registrations for any Native American insignia? PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: I think as a blanket comment, yes. Of course, there may be certain specific--I'm speaking most specifically about educational institutions and also franchise, professional sport franchises primarily. So in those two domains, for the most part, I think they should go. MS. MARSH: Okay. Any other questions? COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: My name is Todd Dickinson. I'm the acting commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, and I apologize for being a little bit late. I know that my panelists did a great job without me, and I'm pleased to be here today and thank you very much for your testimony, Professor. I just had a couple of quick questions too. It's very interesting testimony. A lot of what we have been asked to investigate by the Congress concerns whether we should have a registry of official insignia, not whether we should dwell on the question as we have already dealt with actually most recently at the TTAB of whether Section 2(a) should be invoked against particular marks that are found to be offensive or scandalous, though this is very valuable information to have. One of the questions we asked at the previous hearing and solicited from witnesses was the-- whether or not they had sought to register their own marks, whether the Indian nations or tribes had sought to do that for their own purposes. Some had apparently and some had not. Do you have any opinion on the advisability of that? PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: I don't feel qualified to answer that response or that question. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: You've noted concerned about the registration of Crazy Horse for a mark for clothing. PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: Yes. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Would it trouble you any differently if the Lokota tribes or the heirs of Crazy Horse sought to register it for clothing? PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: I think that that's a decision that they need to be making rather than the Liz Claiborne Company simply lifting the term because it's a snappy term. I think just as the previous speaker talked about Chickasaw Chips and the fact that there's something compelling about how that sounds, a marketing agenda is very different than distorting the history and the legacy of an esteemed leader who we don't learn a great deal about in our classes anyway. We don't have a context out of which we can put this use in terms of Liz Claiborne up against any kind of reality about who Crazy Horse actually was to really balance what's going on, and so what we learn is we learn that Crazy Horse is associated with malt liquor. We learn that this expression may not even be a person, but we don't really know who that real person is, and that's what I think the damage is. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: You have had testimony, and I think we note from our own records that a number of Native American tribes are seeking to register marks that include their names and other insignia for various services, for example, and probably most prominently recently gaming. Do you have a concern about that relative to the context of your testimony? PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: No, again, my testimony is really limited very much to educational institutions. I haven't studied that issue. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: One of the other concerns that was raised during the hearings so far was if we created a registry of official insignia, if I read your testimony correctly, you would take a very broad definition of official insignia to include the name of a tribe, for example, would be, I think, within your definition or individual elements of design perhaps. Could you suggest a mechanism for us of how to approach the problem that we see in a lot of our registrations of conflicts when one tribe would seek to register an element that another tribe also felt was an element of their cultural heritage, was part of their official insignia? PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: Again I think that's something that needs to be determined by the Native American community and discussed between those two entities. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Okay. Thanks. PROFESSOR STAUROWSKY: Thank you. 8. MICHAEL D. HOBBS, JR. MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Michael Hobbs, attorney for Mohawk Carpet Corporation. MR. HOBBS: Good morning. My name is Michael Hobbs, and actually I am a member of the law firm of Troutman Sanders on behalf of Mohawk Carpet Corporation. I'm deeply honored to be here on behalf of myself, my firm, and our client. I prepared a rather lengthy, actually, submission for written testimony, and rather than read it--I noted that it's a windowless room, but I don't want to send people fleeing for windows to jump out of if I bore them and try to read this, plus I'm not sure how the read a footnote, quite frankly. So in any event, what I've done and what I'd like to do is to first of all request that my written testimony be read into the record verbatim, and then, secondly, what I'd like to do is two things, first of all to hit the high notes in terms of what I think are the pertinent testimony here. Secondly, I've heard some questions that have been posed by the panel in terms of as you're wrestling with this, what do you do, how do you enact this, and then lastly to answer any questions that you've got. If in the course of addressing something, a question pops in your mind, please feel free to interrupt. I view this as a dialogue as well, and if you're wrestling at something, at the end of the day, you're going to have to submit a report on this. So on behalf of, again, myself, my client, and my firm, we've examined this issue to which a public comment has been requested, and as a preliminary statement, I think I echo what's been said in terms of we are absolutely, positively, unequivocally in favor of protecting intellectual property of Native American tribes. I think that goes without saying, and I just wanted to repeat it though, because I think that's fundamental in terms of what we're trying to achieve here; though when I listen in terms of the Chickasaw Chips, how do you stop that? What do you do in terms of that? I think all of us say that's wrong, that shouldn't be done, but then how do you deal with that within the fundamental foundations of trademark law? I'm an intellectual property lawyer. That's the fundamental basis in which I deal with these issues. Having wrestled with that question and examined it, we would propose three things, that first of all in examining the current Lanham Act, we believe it's adequate, that it may need some tweaking, it may need some modification in terms of practice, but the actual Lanham Act, particularly the provisions 2(a), 2(d), we believe are significant and sufficient to protect Native American tribal rights. The second aspect is we're significantly concerned that if there's a loose or a vague definition in terms of official insignia, then it could cause staggering impact and the repercussions that, frankly, you all are going to have deal with, I'm going to have to deal with, the public is going to have to deal with, and Native American tribes are going to have to deal with. It's a significant concern. The last point we've got is I, frankly, I'm not an Indian rights expert. The issue of Indian sovereignty, I am completely out of my league. I can't issue and address that. That seems to me to be a fundamental concern in terms of the issues you're addressing. I think our point is, though, that if there is an amendment after the hearings you've been to, the written testimony, the recommendations, yes, something needs to be done. The current Lanham Act doesn't actively and doesn't sufficiently protect Native American tribal rights. I think we would say that it is being protected, but again we defer to your judgment in terms of that; but if it's to be changed, our view is a very narrow modification is in order, and we believe that on that narrow modification, Native American tribal rights will be adequately protected. In going through this and listening to the testimony, I actually had a question for the group. How many of you all are intellectual property attorneys? Just raise your hand. Okay. About half a group. It seems to me that in listening to the questions and listening to the testimony that part of the issue that people have a concern with is perhaps not knowing exactly how the process works in terms of how a trademark gets examined, and if I could digress for about two minutes just to go over that, because I'm just impressed with the group that is here today in terms of the representation, the knowledge, and just the information that everyone has. But as an intellectual property practitioner, I've got a little narrow bit of information that I'd like to share, and that is as follows: If I represent the Coca Cola Company, one of Atlanta's trademarks, which I don't, but if I did, I'd file a trademark in the Patent and Trademark Office for Coca Cola, it's out of my hands. It goes to the Patent and Trademark Office. An examiner gets it on his or her desk and then goes through and makes several determinations. First of all, they go through and say is there another existing registration or prior application that has prior rights and it's confusingly similar, the likelihood of confusion. There's a test called the Dupont Test that's a 13-factor test. An examiner will go through that and say is there likelihood of confusion. I'm applying for Coca Cola, is Cactus Cola confusingly similar, and they will go through and make that analysis. The second analysis they'll make is in terms of is the mark description. Does it describe the product I want it to identify and thereby--it was talked about earlier--a monopoly, does this give me a monopoly to the word computer, internet? I mean, there are a lot of different words out there I need to describe in commerce. There are several other aspects, though, that an examiner will review. They will review--under 2(a) of the Lanham Act, they will review and say does this--and there's several tests. First of all, does it create a deceptive mark, does it create a false association with another institution, and then third, is there a disparagement, defamation? And those are all factors that the Patent and Trademark Office currently does right now. They make those determinations, and I think at the outset Ms. Marsh talked about and said, yes, that is part of it. I can speak anecdotally. I am very aware as a practitioner that under 2(a) grounds it doesn't have to be registered. If it creates one of those three aspects, a deception, a defamation, a false association with one of these institutions, the Patent and Trademark Office has to be aware of it, but if it's an institution, they will reject it. It is not entitled to federal registration on that basis, and so--I started out as a teacher, so I had to get my two minutes in on that. But with that explanation, having reviewed the arsenal that's currently before the Patent and Trademark Office that is at its disposal, our submission is it's sufficient right now, that if you go through--if you have Chickasaw Chips, is that deceptive? Do I see that and think, gosh, I didn't know the Chickasaw Nation was making potato chips? Yeah, I probably would. I would say, gosh, you know, this is a new line of business, as you said. That would be rejected under current Lanham Act law. The next thing is does it create a geographic association. If I see something that creates an assumption that came from an Indian reservation, a Native American reservation, that would be rejected. If it defames or creates a scandalous mark, for example the Redskins on the basis of the most recent TTAB decision, that would be either rejected, or if the mark has issued, it would be cancelled. The beauty of all of that, though, is you don't have to pay a dime to do that. That's what the Patent and Trademark Office does. They will reject all of these marks on that basis. Now-- COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Actually, you have to pay $245. MR. HOBBS: But actually, as an institution, though, if you qualify as an institution--I paid $245 to register my mark, but there isn't a fee if you're an institution. So I think what had been alluded to earlier perhaps is education, that there are, from the counts that I've seen, various testimony, between 550 and 600 state and federally-registered or recognized Indian tribes. That is a significant number. How do you keep up to date on that? Well, it seems to me that the way to handle that is part of the education process. Examining attorneys go through and have regular education programs. New examining attorneys are given that, and it seems to me that's part of the process, that there is an education component that's involved in this. Here are the tribal official seals of the various Native American tribes, and that ought to be part of the education process in terms of it. Do you need to amend the Lanham Act to do that? No, we would respectfully submit. Other avenues or arsenal at the disposal of the Patent and Trademark Office to deny a registration are 2(d). Is there a likelihood of confusion? We ran a search of the records of the Patent and Trademark Office, and it appears to us there are about 200 pending applications, existing registrations that are in the name of Native American tribes. So it's being used to a certain extent. Part of it may be a lack of awareness in terms of its existence. Part of it may be a barrier in terms of cost, but it is a very real avenue in terms of 2(d). Some other avenues that are out there that I haven't heard discussed are currently there are the Indian Arts and Craft Act. It provides a very real barrier to use of a mark in association with goods or services but also in terms of registration, that pursuant to Sections 1 and 45 of the Lanham Act, you can't register a mark if it's an illegal mark, if it breaks the law. That provides another avenue in terms of that. In sum, in terms of preserving the status quo, the concern I have, my client has, that trademark petitioners I have talked to is the Lanham Act is sacred. It should not be amended unless there is something significantly wrong with it. It earlier was talked about the Copyright Act. The Copyright Act is amended every two years. I mean, there are 100 different versions of it. If I want to figure out the links of copyright for one of my client's works, I have to go to a chart to try to figure it out. The Lanham Act simply is not amended without careful study. It is rarely amended, and we would support that. If it isn't broke, don't fix it, and is it working now to its current effect? I'm not sure I can answer that. I went through and tried to find an official Indian tribal seal that had been registered by someone or incorporated as part of a mark. I couldn't find one, but is there one? I can't answer that. But it appears to me that with the adjustment of education, of examining terms you're aware of, these are official Native American tribal seals, and that can be submitted to the Patent and Trademark Office. That's part of the education process, and we would submit that's sufficient. The concern we've got is that if there's a loose definition of official insignia--frankly, I don't know what official insignia means. I went to the dictionary, and I don't think that provides guidance. I couldn't find it in the Lanham Act. So the concern I've got if you use the definition official insignia, you're opening the flood gates to a whole rash of new litigation, cancellation actions. What does this mean? No one knows what that means. So our concern is that doesn't just damage trademark owners. Clearly, it potentially does, and the reason for it, sometimes if it damages a trademark owner that has tried to usurp the rights of a Native American tribe illegally, that's wrong, clearly, but what's happened is if you look in the geographic history of the United States, there are a lot of geographic terms that are the same as Native American tribes: Iowa, Miami. Nantucket is a Native American word. So given the geographic history of our country, for better, for worse, a lot of these geographic terms have been adopted as part of trademarks. If I am part of the NBA, and I see Miami Heat, that is a name referring to the city and geographic location in southern Miami, not to the Native American Miami tribe. No ill intent, I don't think, on anyone's behalf in terms of that, but it exists. If the word alone, Miami, is a designated definition of official insignia, well, then what do you do on that? I don't know. What if a Native American- -say a cultural heritage, a lacrosse stick, for example, is registered or listed as an official insignia, well, does that mean that you can't have the sword of lacrosse anymore unless you have a license from the Native American tribe? What if you have several Indian tribes incorporate the same word? The Cherokee tribe, there's several different branches of that. Does one have to obtain a license from the other tribe to use that? I don't know the answer to that, and that seems to me fundamentally troubling in terms of the definition of an official insignia. You look puzzled. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Cross-licensing is a fairly standard practice in your industry. I don't understand why that is confusing and/or troubling. MR. HOBBS: The explanation for that is I know how much effort and time and energy goes into a cross-license, and it's certainly an ideal situation if you have a cross- license, but I've had situations where I couldn't cross- license, and unfortunately we ended up in litigation over it. So you're right, absolutely. That's how it could be resolved, but what we would propose is that if after the testimony, the Patent and Trademark Office says yes, we are going the recommend that a change is made, it is not being adequately--American Indian tribal insignia are not being adequately protected, our proposal is let's take the foundational, fundamental statutory guidelines of the act, and let's tweak it, that if you go to Section 2(b), there is already a protection for states, United States, and also for municipalities. Add the words in, and you can determine--I'm, again, not an expert in terms of Native American law, but "federally-recognized, state recognized Native American tribes". There's a body of case law out there that interprets 2(b), and I know what that means. I know that if it is merely a name, that's not protected by 2(b). If it is a lacrosse stick, that's not protected, but if I take that seal, that's not entitled to registration. So that would be our submission in terms of what we would recommend, that if--again, we submit 2(A) is more than sufficient. 2(d) is more than sufficient with perhaps some tweaking, but, again, if something is needed, it would be on that limit basis to prevent the difficulty of defining official insignia which I have tried to do and I cannot. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Do you have any questions? MS. MARSH: Yes. So you would define insignia as not including just the tribal names, as sort of other speakers have advocated? MR. HOBBS: I would. Again, going back to even the geographic origins, that if I'm the Miami Heat, and there's a Miami and Native American tribe, there's no ill intent. I don't think that people think of a Native American tribe when they hear Miami Heat. It's a basketball team located in the City of Miami. I think it presents difficulties in terms of interpretation. Does it seem to me that is there an ill intent there? I don't think so. So yes, I would. The definition we would use is the same definition that's in 2(b), that it has to be and rise to the level of a flag, coat of arms--it's a little antiquated term, but seal, or insignia, and as insignia is defined in 2(b), not overly--again, it has to fit in, and then also or a substantial similarity which is also in 2(b), so again, going back to if there are four arrows in the quiver versus three, that's not an issue. It is--again, does it consist or comprise of language? A couple of other--if I could just address a couple other things that you all had asked about, it seems to me that--actually, I think several of your questions have been answered. Any further questions? COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: We had taken testimony in Albuquerque, and one of the larger bodies of testimony was from the Zia Nation, Zia tribe who uses a symbol. It doesn't show up very well, but it's been the source of substantial discussion. It's just this piece here at the top. I asked them what they regarded as their official insignia, and they regarded just that sun symbol at the top as their official insignia. Does that trouble you under your discussion of what constitutes an official insignia? MR. HOBBS: Well, the one issue I didn't get to and didn't address is how do you create a list. If you are going to go with the 2(b), how do you create a list, and the difficulty I've got is there's no list as far as I can tell for municipalities. I mean it would be impossible for every- -I don't believe there's a state list either. I know there is one under Article Six, T.R. for applications for international marks, but there is no list for state municipalities. So do you create a list or not? The difficulty I've got is if you create a list, you've got to have an objection mechanism in it, that if you look under, you know, under the Paris Convention, there's a objection under that, that the United States has 12 months to object to that. To offer and say that unilaterally there can be a list with no sort of oversight and review, that seems to me to be problematic. And so to answer your question in terms of that, I'm not familiar with the facts in the law in terms of--the facts primarily in terms of the Zia symbol. Is it, in fact, that they consider it to be theirs? Absolutely. That's entitled to consideration. It is also--and going to tests that are put out in 2(a) and 2(b), so is the primary--is the primary association with the Zia tribe? If the answer is yes, I think they're entitled to a registration or on the list. If it's not, that becomes problematic, but I think you have to have some sort of test what goes on the list and what doesn't. It seems to me what's established is 2(a) and 2(b). MS. MARSH: And under 2(b), any simulation of a native insignia would be barred? MR. HOBBS: Absolutely. If you used three prongs coming off the circle for the Zia logo, absolutely, that is- -again, if it's a similarity thereof, if it calls to mind the Zia symbol, absolutely. I mean that should be prohibited. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: My understanding is we don't reject marks that include the maple leaf alone as an element. My understanding is that we don't reject marks that consist of a large red circle. Those could conceivably be considered the insignia of the flag of a foreign country. Do you see any inconsistency there? MR. HOBBS: I think the point is well taken. I think that, again, going back to the tests for 2(a) and 2(b), that it's got to be the primary association has to be with the nation, with the institution or the foreign nation, that if I see a maple leaf, do I think of Log Cabin syrup, do I think of the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club, do I think of--I think there is such a blurring of that that I think that those particular indices you've talked about-- now, if I do a red star in a white field in a designation that resembles a flag or coat of arms, yeah, then I think that's very problematic; but if I have a red dot, I mean, there are a lot of red dot trademarks that are out there. So, again, I think, again, does it--is the primary impact that calls to mind the institution, the foreign nation, the owner of that. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Your client, the Mohawk Carpet Company, have they ever engaged in discussions along the lines that we've been discussing here today with the Mohawk Tribe? MR. HOBBS: They have not. They have not. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Has the Mohawk Tribe ever raised a concerns that have been raised through this testimony both here and other places about your use of that mark? MR. HOBBS: They have not. The origin of the Mohawk Carpet Corporation, again, it goes back to the geographic issues, that the Mohawk Carpet Corporation in the 1920s was founded in the Mohawk River Valley of New York. I mean, it's a geographic place. That's where it was founded, and that was the name that the corporation took. In the 1940s, when labor was cheaper in Georgia than it was in New York, they moved down to Georgia, and they've maintained the same name, and so that's the origin of it. There are--we've done an investigation of it. There are a significant number of Mohawk uses. Is it our intent or our client's intent to call or invoke the Mohawk Indian tribe? No, absolutely not. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can I just ask a question? MR. HOBBS: Yes. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Well, let's hear the question. Maybe we'll read it into the record. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Why does Mohawk use an Indian emblem to sell its product? MR. HOBBS: My understanding-- COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: The question was--to repeat for the record, the question is the speaker's understanding is that the Mohawk Carpet Company uses a stylized logo of what appears to be a Native American in their advertising and as their logo. Why is that if they're intended to be a geographic designation? MR. HOBBS: I should have clarified to the extent- -it is historically a geographic designation, and then part of it lies in the reason for the selection in terms of the symbol is that as the Patent and Trademark Office well knows, there is no protection inherently for a geographic mark. If it's Mohawk Carpet Corporation, does that come from Mohawk, New York? That's not going to get a registration from the beginning. Additionally, Mohawk Carpet Corporation, the desire was not to be associated with any geographic area. So in terms of using it, it's not intended to be affiliated with the Mohawk Indian tribe. It's a stylized symbol of a Native American boy, and that's the choice. Is it a seal of the Mohawk Indian tribe? Absolutely not. Have I inquired, has there been any questions as to affiliation with the Mohawk Indian tribe? No, and I checked, and I asked in terms of that. There is not. Do you believe the Mohawk Carpet Corporation is affiliated with the Mohawk Indian tribe? COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Well, this isn't intended as colloquy, I'm afraid. MR. HOBBS: No, I'm just saying that that--to answer your question specifically, there are various historical reasons for it. It is an Indian boy, yes, that's correct, but it's not intended to be any sort of association with the Mohawk Indian Native American tribe. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: One final question. I noticed in your testimony you got to the question which I asked the previous witness which was what to do in the case of conflicts. Can you give us any guidance along that line? MR. HOBBS: I'm sorry. Conflicts? COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Where more than one tribe has a similar or maybe identical either name or official insignia. MR. HOBBS: I think there are a number of ways of doing it. You had alluded to cross-license. I think that also there's a potential for a collective mark perhaps, that is where no one entity owns it but it's put into use so that several members could use that. MS. MARSH: Thank you. 9. GARY BROUSE MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Gary Brouse from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. MR. BROUSE: First of all, thank you for letting me speak here today, and I represent the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsibility is an organization of religious institutional shareholders who have investments in corporations. They represent the Catholic, the Protestant, and Jewish institutions. We have probably about a $100 billion worth of investment in Corporate America. I'm very, very honored that I work with this organization. They have been going through the last several years learning about this issue, as the corporations have, and to their credit, they have taken on this issue as an important investment issue. One thing they would like to convey to you is that the religious shareholders not only invest in a corporation for financial returns but also the social returns. We feel that it can be very expensive when the company starts to have to shell out money for discrimination cases and in cases like this where there has been some challenges about corporate logos and mascots and stuff like that. So we go around to the corporations, and we discuss the issue with them. We have in the last year met with about 30 corporations. Some of those corporations have discontinued their advertising, using any kind of emblems or symbols such as the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo and the Atlanta Braves. Anheuser Busch just this year went on 60 Minutes and said they will no longer use the Chief Wahoo issue because of its controversy and it's mean and demeaning toward Indian people. My job at the Interfaith Center is I'm the director of diversity and indigenous issues. What I do for the religious organization is review corporations' performance in the workplace on the corporate boards, making sure that their boards are diverse. If they're not, we report back to the investors who have shares in that company or who are considering investing in that company. We want to make sure that a corporation is having minorities' and women's input at the highest levels. We believe this is one of the problems that corporations fall into when they have a board or an executive staff that is not completely diverse, that's not getting the input from the community who they're serving in their marketplaces. So we consider this tremendously important. One of the things that I would like to say is that especially with the word "Redskin". We talked, and you heard about the laws that are in place right now. I don't know how you could say that--I mean, it took this country this long to learn what "redskin" means. That's a long time. Now the educational system has failed us on this. The legal system has failed us on this, and we need to start to educate, and that's probably one of the weakest points in all these laws that we're talking about, is that we really don't know. I mean, we're hearing testimony here today that a lot of people are not aware of why these issues are so important to the Indian community, and I think one of the things that the PTO can do is to create a greater resource for gathering information and having this information available. Another thing I might suggest is to diversify a little bit more. You did a great job here today but also to include Indian people in your employment, in your consultation and research. That's where a lot of corporations fail. As we talked about these issues with corporations, we found when we're addressing just the logo issue in advertising, we found out they were falling down in other areas such as their diversity training program toward Indian people. Maybe they didn't have a large Indian population in their work force, but they were in some way connected with the Indian community, whether it was through their advertising, whether it was through their vendor programs. There was still some connection. So they had a tremendous weakness there, and we were helping them to develop that. What I have put here together for you--maybe I'll just allude to one thing. I went to an annual meeting of American Brands when they were American Brands, and the issue was board diversity. They had no women on there. They had no minorities on their board at that time. And as I looked up to make my presentation about the resolution, a big emblem came down, the corporate logo, and it was the head of an Indian in full headdress, and all of a sudden my comments immediately changed, and what I said was that when I look up on that stage and what we're asking is the board to diversify, I only see one minority face up there, and unfortunately it's a caricature of an Indian person. And this seems to be epidemic in our society today, what's happening in corporate America. These logos are themes. They provide an environment in which they're trying to communicate to public, to their customers, a certain idea. Unfortunately, that becomes very derogatory toward Indian people. When that theme came down, that Indian head, that said to me that they were somehow diversified even though realistically it wasn't true. That's what corporations do when they do their advertising. It is more likely today that you're going to see a caricature or a logo or a mascot of an Indian person than you are going to see a real Indian person. You are not hearing from the Indian community, and that's what's so unfortunate. Everything that people know about Indian people today has been through the educational system, through the media, through advertising, through Corporate America, but not directly from Indian people. And I think one of the things I can say is the great appreciation I have for you is that there are so many Indian people here to be able to testify on that behalf and that opportunity hasn't always been there, and it's unfortunate that it's taken this long. One of the--this is more of a picture-type presentation for you to show you that these images mean much, much more than what a lot of people are indicating. It's interesting that a lot of these Indian logos and mascots started after the second World War when a lot of the propaganda material that was used against Germans and Japanese then focused on Indian people, and this gives you an idea of what some of those images look like. And it's interesting that while we're not seeing that they are identical, we are seeing there are similarities between the Nazi's most famous propaganda against the Jewish people in the Chief Wahoo logo. There are similarities there. There are exaggerations. They use the same methods to communicate the images that you see here. When you get to our earlier country in our history, you look at some of the corporations' logo and advertising, and you see Nigger Head Brands. I don't see any difference from that than the Chief Wahoo head that we see today, and I don't understand why people can't make that connection. We addressed GTE about their ad, and not only was the Chief Wahoo on the ad, but the only way to talk tribe was their pitch on this particular ad which we thought was culturally offensive. We addressed that corporation about this issue. We went through these issues. They will no longer use this advertising. They no longer use the Chief Wahoo in their advertising. There is the potential that if some corporations retain these logos, that if they don't change, there's going to be lawsuits, there's going to be great financial loss to the shareholders and it's a concern we have. This is an ad that was on the back of popcorn, which you can see--I'll read it. "The original All-American snack food was discovered of course by the original American Indians, not the Cleveland Indians, the bow and arrow Indians. It was highly popularized by western movies in which the cowboys always got the girl, the land, the ponies, and all the Indians got was maize. For a complete satisfaction, the eater should face the happy hunting ground and mutter an original prayer of thanks to Pohohantas and Sitting Bull, then buy another bag of exploded maize. To eat plain ole popcorn would be a failure to recognize our nation's debt to the Indians and constitute a grossly unpatriotic act and participate in Indian uprisings." I put together just samples of some of the material that we have seen that corporations have put out. We've written to about 400 corporations about these issues. This is some of the responses. Sears has indicated their decisions are made by their customer demands. We were asking about the sports logos that they sold and their fabrics and their advertising that they use, and this is their response to us. They're putting their responsibility off on someone else here, their customers. This is a letter from GTE that, as you can see, is a response to the ad and them changing their methods. Wal- Mart, here is a response. Now, Wal-Mart has some problems, not only with the logos of selling them but also in their work force in which they deal with Indian people. They have a lot of stores on the reservations, but they employ very little Indian people. They also violate a lot of sacred sites among Indian people. This is all the lack of knowledge and education on their part of knowing what really is the problem. They failed to meet with us and discuss these issues. Another thing Wal-Mart does is they take their theme into our school systems. They bought a whole marching band uniform of Indian regalia, including full headdress for this band, passing on this stereotype, this racism that exists about Indian people. So these are penetrating. These corporate logos are penetrating into our school systems. They use the words like the Washington Redskins just like everybody else. Here's another example of some of the ads, Chief Crunchy which has been seen in a lot of school cafeterias. The J.C. Penney ad is of Crazy Horse fashions which we've been having discussions with. I think one of the concerns here is that the conversations that J.C. Penney and Liz Claiborne has had has had direct contact with the Crazy Horse estate and the descendants of Crazy Horse. After those discussions and the survey that they're about to do, without telling us, even though we were having these discussions, had decided now to expand the Crazy Horse fashions for men. And then just an example of the Mohawk Carpeting. The last one is from Phillip Morris, Miller Brewing Company which is also another company which has stated that they will no longer use these symbols in their advertising. I think one of the greatest disappointments is to see two of your leading heroes, and it's surprising when you put people in one situation and then sit them in another one to see how awful it looks to have two African Americans in front of the Chief Wahoo logo. It really tells a story. I think that a lot has been said today here about what the cost is going to be to the corporation if there's some additional laws around these issues, but I think really what we should be asking ourselves is the debt that the American Indian people have had to pay all these years of not being recognized, and I think it's about time to start being concerned about their feelings and their concerns and hearing them out. One of the reasons why some of these trademarks are not licensed or are not applied for--you're going to hear later from an attorney that will give you a better explanation than I can, but some of it is that there is a religious belief against doing those kind of things. There should be something in our laws that our laws would protect without Indian people having to jeopardize their own religious beliefs to protect. There's a certain responsibility I think this government has as a sovereign nation to a sovereign nation, and maybe we should start to be looking into those, of ways of how to protect the Indian people in that respect. I think one--like I said before was that we need greater research. I think one of the things you can take advantage of, the New York State Educational system is carrying on a research of the issue of Indian logos within the school systems in the State of New York, and that's being conducted by the commissioner of education in New York State, and I don't think that report has been finished yet, but I recommend that when it is, that you get a copy of that report for future benefit. I thank you very much. MS. MARSH: This isn't as much a question as a comment. I feel compelled to defend the Trademark Office. We doubled the size of our professional staff in the last two years because of our increased workload, and I think we hired an extremely diverse group of people. Debbie and Todd may know more about that than I do. And the attorney that we have assigned to the Native American marks has a strong link to the Native American community. She is actually in the audience today, Kathy DeYoung. MR. BROUSE: Hi. MS. MARSH: Do you have any questions? COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: Thank you for your testimony. It's very valuable and I think brings home for us in many ways how we need to be very scrupulous as we undertake our 2(a) responsibilities. I think that the recent decision we had in the Redskins matter, I think is reflective of I, think, where the office is at this point in a lot of these issues. So I think hopefully that decision was one which met with support in the Native American community and was hopefully one which the Native American community felt was being heard at the Patent and Trademark Office. MR. BROUSE: I would just like to comment on that because one thing I can say is that, yes, that has gotten support within the community, but surprisingly it has also gotten some support from within the corporations, and I can tell you that to be in contact with persons like Francine Katz at Anheuser Busch and Tre Parris at Coca Cola, because one of the things that they said that was very helpful to them, it relieved them. They then had something to go to the rest of the company, to their marketing people, and said, you know, we should be doing this. There's been turmoil within the corporations about what they should be doing, and they're always fighting with their marketing people, and they're always looking for information to benefit in the argument. They understand it here, but intellectually, you know, putting that information out. So when PTO came out with that decision, it really lifted a great burden within a lot of the corporations and instantly made changes within their policies, almost immediately within those companies, and as far as the comment about diversity is, I was complimenting, and this is something I do at every corporation. We don't have American Indians sitting on corporate boards, and we need to have more input from the Indian community on that. I think one of the things that I might point out is the past history here is that what's so discouraging within the community is that you had a presidential commission on race which had no Indian representation on that. You had a glass ceiling commission with 21 commissioners looking into the glass ceiling in Corporate America, no one from the Indian community out of 21 commissions. There was never in the past been an Indian person who has sat on the commission for civil rights. You see all these national debates going on about affirmative action that's going on in this country. You don't see representatives from the Indian country coming in there and participating. You don't know what the impact is going to be on these decisions. So we're looking at the whole national picture here, and there's just no input. And this is one of the bright points for the Indian community to see, that there is a government agency actually doing something that seems to be benefitting the Indian people. So I just want to make sure that you understand that that is a compliment, and we are grateful for that. Thank you. 10. MICHAEL HAINE MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Michael Haine. MR. HAINE: Good morning. My name is Michael Haine, and I am the director of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media. We are a coalition of 48 different national human and civil rights organizations, advocacy groups, ranging all the way from the National Congress of American Indians to the Nation of Islam, NAACP, the Urban League, and sort of an array of who's who in the area of human rights, and we've been--we were formed in 1992 just for the purpose of protecting our images. I'm also a Seminole. I'm half Sioux and half Seminole, but I'm a vice chairman of my nation, Seminole nation, and so I'm half Sioux and half Seminole. I've got a little bit of white blood in me too, but I can't prove it. I know that's a big deal here in Washington, but I'm very happy to be here. I represent a lot of tribal governments in Oklahoma, and our Indian nations in Oklahoma consist of 39 federally-recognized tribes in the State of Oklahoma. We range all the way from Comanches, some from New York, Delaware, some Pennsylvania and around here to from California, and it seems that a lot of the tribal governments that declared war against the United States ended up in Oklahoma like one big concentration camp. When they moved my people and the five tribes, what they call the five civilized tribes from the southeastern part of the United States, into what's now Oklahoma, what they call under the Removal Act, and that brings me to my first point, is that as tribal governments, we're really concerned about the impact of images on our youth. As a grandparent, as an elected leader, as a community leader, and as an educator, I'm concerned about the use of your images in colleges, universities, institutions of higher education, and in our secondary and elementary schools throughout the nation. And just as I'd heard that why have you Indians waited so long to come and object--I hear that all the time. Why did you wait so long? Like the Cleveland baseball team, they tell us that or the Atlanta baseball team. How come you guys waited until we were winning to come out here and protest, you know, and as it's just recently we've gained some political power. It's just recently that the president has signed into executive order a law mandating a government- to-government relationship. To me that would help you clarify your insignias, you know, your seals, because that is a law now. There's an executive order that we should be treated as a government, and that brings me to the Mohawk Carpet issue. Maybe the University of Illinois, the Florida State appropriating tribal names. We have treaties with the federal government that predates any of these guys, any of these corporations, legal binding documents. There was no other Mohawks around when those treaties were signed. There was no other Seminoles around when that--when these things were signed, way before Florida State University. I want to tell your a problem I have with that group down there. You know, I'm a Seminole Indian. We have beautiful--have you seen the patchwork jackets Seminoles have? They're indigenous and unique just to my people. We had a woman that was at Florida State University in the plaza right there selling chances on a jacket. She had the word Seminole on the back, and that goes to the arts and crafts. I'm glad someone brought up the arts and crafts bill. It's related. And she was escorted off the university grounds because the word Seminole, the university security said that violated their patent, Florida State University's patent on the word Seminole. My tribe. I'm a Seminole, not them, and they escorted one of my elders off very unceremoniously, very disrespectfully because they have a patent and that's wrong. That's wrong that they could do that to my people. That's wrong that they could appropriate my name or regalia. And their band outfit has patchwork now, their band, and to me that's an appropriation of our traditional cultural properties, national cultural properties that we've- -that's included in our religious freedom protections, including in what they call Naive American Grant Protection and Appropriation Act included in the National Historic Preservation Act. Those are related in the fiduciary responsibility of this government's trust responsibility to my people as indicated by those legal and political documents you would call treaties. They are still enforceable documents. The Supreme Court continually reaffirms that concept, and I don't like it that we have to go to--I've been arrested 43 times in exercising our First Amendment right to protest against the use of our names and images. When the Cleveland baseball team played the Atlanta Braves down in Atlanta, to me that was a largest exhibition of cultural cross-dressing in this nation's history, and the other thing, all the people walked around in makeup, their mother's makeup and dyed chicken feathers and dyed turkey feathers on their head, and, you know, I can tell you that bothers me. I'm a veteran. I don't know how many of you are veterans. I know a few are, but I know that the Vietnam veterans, anyone that had an uncle, a brother, or a father, or a relative in the Vietnam War knows the color red and yellow and green denotes honorable service, honorable service to your people in your country, and I have the right to wear paint because of my service. I have a right to wear black paint and yellow because of my service, and it bothers me when I see mascots and cheerleaders bouncing around the University of Illinois football field in their mother's makeup, reds and yellows. That violates--I don't know how you put it in your language, but that violates to me the way that I worship. We're very highly symbolic people, and in a lot of our regalia you'll see the four colors of mankind, red, yellow, black and white. In a lot of symbols, you'll see circles. You'll see different colors that have very important meaning to us. It's all lost at 70,000 screaming fans at R.F.K. Stadium over here or at the Florida State University or the University of Illinois stadium. They appropriate our ideas our images without the proper respect and it's damaging to me. I walk along Washington here, and people are scared of me. I was over at the museum recently, over at the national museum. What do you call it? The Natural History. I was waiting to go upstairs to the third floor where all the Indians are. You know, they put us in Natural History with all the stuffed, you know, dinosaurs and stuffed bears. You know, they don't put us in American history. You know, I kind of like that in some ways. In some ways it's kind of racist, I think, you know, and in some ways we're natural. You know, if we ever build a museum to your society, we'll have to call it the American Museum of Unnatural History, I guess, put a few stuffed psychiatrists in there maybe, a beer can, a tractor, and some Pampers, but that's all the same thing. To me a lot of these issues have a common thread of racism whether it's access to educational opportunities, job training opportunities. There's racism, and it's contributed by the phenomenal impact of the sporting industry on our people. There are people getting killed for Starter jackets that had Florida State University on it, $150, $200 Starter jackets. They get killed for that. I don't know how many parents we have here, but I'm getting tired of taking out loans every time my kids go to school to pay for those $150 tennis shoes and all those regalia they have associated with sports, associated with sports. And mainstream America, they won't ever hear from us like this, sitting down and talking like we're doing now, asking me questions, why do you feel that way, why does it bother you. They draw conclusions about what they see on television, about what you read in the newspapers. Our media and journalists have a phenomenal responsibility because what they print, like when Washington wins, they just can't beat Dallas. They've got to massacre them; right? They don't have ceremonial headdresses like we have. Every eagle feather is earned, an act of generosity, an act of compassion, an act of love. So an eagle feather headdress, what they call a ceremonial head dress is a whole life of servitude toward our people, and when we see them down there with the dyed chicken feathers, when we see Osciola come out in Florida State, when we see them come out in the University of the Illinois, that demeans not only us but has impact on your people, and you because people, when they turn on their TV and cable, which is all of our people these days, you know, is we see the crowd, and we see a whole bunch of fans with their makeup on. The little ones think, well, all Indians must, you know, do the tomahawk chop which kind of simulates scalping, all Indians still kind of dress that way and have war paint instead of, you know, ceremonial markings. We have war bonnets instead of ceremonial headdress. We have war drums instead of ceremonial drums. That creates a hostility towards my people. Yes, that creates a lens by which people see us and judge us by. So your issues of the patent, and we're going after--our group is going after the Kansas City Chiefs. We're going after the Atlanta Braves, and it bothers me because Time Warner owns the Atlanta Braves, and we're going to go meet with them. They're sending out not their CEOs or decision makers. They're going to send out Hank Aaron, an African American who is one of my heroes, you know, like the Indians against Indians, you know, and it bothers me that they're not taking us seriously that way. How come it has to be Indians? Like, they've been here like 500 years now; right? They've been here in our country, and it seems like out of 500 years of existence, you can find one white boy that you're proud of to be brave and put him down here as a mascot for a Atlanta Braves, not the Indians, but the fact is-- And we did a study California. We asked when you think of warriors and braves, what do you think of. They don't think of white people. They think of Indians, and that's the most recognizable response, and that's why they name their teams after that, because we'd rather died guarding this goal line rather than just submit to injustice or to ridicule or to live a disparaging life. We'd rather die than live that way, and that's somehow--the institutions of education, the sporting industry has turned that around, you know, to honor us in one way. I would like to--and I came down here with one specific purpose, the University of Illinois, which I understand is going to be speaking here later. You recently issued a patent protecting them, and I have to tell you we highly object to that, the tribes that I represent. When I went back to Oklahoma, we were the first coalition of tribal governments to go on record opposing the use of images, intellectual property rights. We named the Washington Redskins, the University of Illinois, Florida State, and, you know, Winnebago pickups, even the Redskin chewing tobacco. And I went further from there to the National Congress of American Indians. We're the largest coalition of federally-recognized tribes in elected governments. I went to the National Indian Education Association. I went to the National Education Association. I went to the National Counsel of Churches. I went to the World Council of Churches. We all got resolutions unanimously asking everyone to abandon the use of Indian characters, logos, mascots, and symbols. And finally, we'd like to ask you for your help for this and the developing of a mechanism to review this. You know, I would simply point to the executive order that demands and mandates consultation whenever you have or do an exercise that impacts our tribal governments. I would ask that Florida State University, I would like to formally object to your issuance of a patent to that, you know. And what is strange about these schools, the University of North Dakota, the University of Illinois, Florida State University, San Diego State University, University of Utah, not one of them has a Native American studies program, yet they said that want to honor us. If you want to honor us and show represent to us, develop a mechanism of understanding, teach your students about us, not just confine us to the playing floor that we're just entertainment for your fans, which I suspect they're flat lying to me. They look me in the eye and say we don't mean to hurt you. We don't mean to be offensive to you, thus we're not going to stop. I addressed the board of regents of the University of Illinois. I asked them. I said that in view of the Redskins decision, cancellation, I'd like to talk to you about your continued use of Indian symbols, the illusion that you're working cooperatively with tribal governments to represent these things. They wrote back and said since we feel that it's not disparaging to you, we decline to meet with you, and I had that letter from the board of regents. So we're not--we're trying to work with you. We're just learning the process. We're kind of infants in some ways in protecting our culture, and one of the things that we're running into is this idea of that we've always done it to you guys, and you've never said anything before, and now, you know, you're kind of waking up now. You're causing us to--you're confronting us about these issues, and they're having a little problem dealing with that. And what I'd like to ask is that you have better consultations with the tribe. I don't consider this consultation, you guys. A consultation would be come to our meetings, have a presentation to our tribal governments, to our attorney generals, talk to them about their process. The man here representing Mohawk Carpets doesn't have to turn around and give us a little lesson in the process. We'd like for you to come to our organizations. We meet quite a bit. We'd like to extend an invitation. We're going to meet next--actually, I think next week in Van Couver, but we have an annual conference in--I think this year it's going to be in Palm Springs in November, and I'm sure that we'd like to hear from--as tribal leaders, we'd like to hear how we do protect our images and symbols because, you know, I can tell you we're just now getting in the position to do that, and we'd like for you to seriously consider looking at traditional cultural properties and national cultural properties as symbols and religious symbols because there is--when you have eagle feathers and some of our regalia, those are religious connotations that we think should be protected, and we think you should look closely at going over this line between enterprise and infringement and not just exercises. And I'd like to ask your help, finally, in calling off what I consider the longest war in history, and that's the war against American Indians right here in our own homeland because we know that the propaganda is very damaging. I'm a veteran, and I saw where right after World War II when they had the war crimes and where all those concentration camp guys responsible for the millions of executions and murders, holocaust. They were tried, convicted, and cremated and their ashes thrown to the four winds, symbolically, never again to bother this earth again. I think there was one person that was tried and convicted, and he too was cremated, and his body was just spent like that. He never killed one person. He never turned in a group of people. He was never responsible for that. His lone crime was he published--he was a newspaper publisher, and he published unsavory articles and other characters of Jewish people with big noses so that when they came in and started grabbing people, the people were conditioned to accept it. They said that they deserved it anyway, look at how they act, look at their behavior, look at the way they look, their features and so forth. He was executed for what he did because that was a designed impact of propaganda, an administrator of propaganda, and what happens at the Washington Post is no different than what happened with his newspaper when you talk about the Redskins, Red Niggers we call it, Red Sambos. So I want you to understand the impact of what happens when you issue a trademark and patent protection. You know, we can't protect--we can't attack the first amendment. They call us names all the time. For 500 years we can't stop them, but at least we can appeal to your sense of fair play about protecting the federal protections against theme racist logos, symbols and caricatures. I thank you very much. COMMISSIONER DICKINSON: We're honored to have you here today, and I appreciate the testimony. It's very, very valuable. We'll give it thorough consideration. 11. THOMAS BROOKS MS. MARSH: Thomas Brooks from Gadsby and Hannah is our next speaker. MR. BROOKS: Thank you. My name is Tom Brooks. I'm with the law firm of Gadsby and Hannah here in town, in Washington, and I'm here as a volunteer on behalf of the International Trademark Association. As I'm sure you know, we're a 121-year-old worldwide association representing over 3,700 companies, law firms, professional associations in over 120 countries. INTA, of course, is devoted to protecting and promoting the role that trademarks play in fostering fair and robust competition, and I want to focus today on the problem of official insignia and not caricatures or satires or parodies or any of the other things that some of the previous speakers have mentioned. The issue I believe before this is what to do about protecting official insignias of tribes, of Native American tribes. INTA opposes any proposal to grant sort of special trademark status for any group, including the insignia of Native American tribes. The association adopted a resolution in 1991 officially, in principle opposing any sort of what we call special interest trademark legislation to provide specific groups with any sort of exclusive rights or heightened rights without proof of likelihood of confusion, and we've taken this position consistently in every country where it's come up. It's come up in Canada where the trademarks act there granted special protection to the universities and public authorities, and we've expressed concern over proposed legislation in New Zealand that would grant protection, extra protection, special protection beyond what anybody else would have for New Zealand's indigenous people. This sort of per se prohibition against registration or use of marks that are identical to the official insignia of Native American tribes would be unnecessary, unduly burdensome, and inappropriate for many reasons, and we'd like to highlight some of our concerns. One of them, and I think I overheard--I came in near the end of this discussion--that the commissioner was showing the Zia symbol. It's hard to define with any specificity what the official tribal insignia is going to be, and it's going to be difficult to establish the mechanism to prevent potential abuse, and I don't mean abuse by the tribes. I don't think that's the problem. We're concerned over the establishment of the data base here, and I guess some of the questions are who--would there be a limit on the number of official insignia any tribe could designate? Who would make the determination whether an insignia, the official symbol was actually official? And I did hear this. What about the problem where more than one tribe finds the same symbol to be their official insignia? Could two or more tribes designate the same thing. There, of course, have been many disputes between tribes in various parts of the country. The Hopi and the Navaho come to mind in Arizona. They have several sacred pieces of land they dispute, and it's a very difficult problem and one that I certainly don't have the answer to. It will be difficult to make the determination, of course, as to when somebody who applies for trademark has come up with something that's identical to an official tribal symbol, especially if the symbols are somewhat indefinite, and, of course, the standard could be identical. It could be similar. At what point is it too similar? The example of the Zia symbol, if you have three lines radiating off in a place instead of two, is that close enough, or where do you make the--where do you draw the line? How precisely defined must each official insignia be? For instance, representations of animals or birds or bodies of water, mountains, the sun, stars, may be official insignias and very important to many tribes, but which representations will be protected? For instance, on the eagle, will it be enough for a tribe to say the eagle is our symbol and no one else may use the eagle, or will they have to say, well, the eagle must be brown with white with this side of coloring, and it has to be flying or at rest. That sort of thing would have to be nailed down. Businesses and individuals that wish to adopt a new mark would be faced with the burden of checking the list of official insignia with the selection of each and every new mark. Since, unlike with the normal process of regular trademarks or service marks, there would be no way to narrow the focus to a particular class of goods or services. If I'm advising a client who wants to file a trademark for clothing, we look at clothing and related services. We don't necessarily look at electronic software or at banking services. Such a prohibition could lead to a de facto bar against use of many common geometric shapes since, as was mentioned earlier, the circle is very important and sacred to a number of tribes. We have to be careful because, of course, the circle is extremely commonly used by many different groups, many different businesses and individuals as a trademark or a service mark, and this is true also for depictions of animals, representation of nature, bodies of water. These are all things that could be potentially identical to official insignia. There are over 550 federally-recognized tribes, an untold number of state-recognized tribes. Even with a limit on the number of symbols that any individual tribe could claim, the potential for cutting off representations of a number of representations is huge, symbols, shapes, and the animals and symbols from nature. This prohibition also could create a heavy burden for the examining corps here at the Trademark Office by requiring comparisons of all applications for design marks to a list of perhaps thousands of official tribal insignias, and comparisons between design marks are already difficult enough and quite subjective at this point. Some of the things that go through are surprising. Some of the things that get blocked by the examining corps are always surprising, and this would also--would inevitably arise to whether or not something was actually identical or sufficiently similar, and we'd probably end up with a lot of oppositions and cancellations and litigation. The problem of comparing design marks to official insignia makes the word-picture equivalents doctrine even worse. We would require the examiners to know the meaning of every single symbol. If this geometric shape means something to a group, then under the word-picture doctrine, the words that meant the same thing could potentially be blocked because the symbol already means that and blocks use or registration. It's also--this type of prohibition on symbols on official insignia is potentially a violation of U.S. treaty obligations under the Paris Convention. The relevant sections are found under Section B of Article 6quinquies which states that marks registered in one member state may not be denied registration in another member state unless certain conditions are met. It's also possible for--well, in this case it's possible that a foreign applicant could challenge a rejection by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of a mark that was identical of an official tribal insignia by arguing that use or registration of the mark in question does not violate the type of rights the Paris Convention seeks to protect. And, of course, many mark owners in the United States have used symbols for years that may be identical to official tribal insignia, and I'm not talking again about caricatures, but official tribal insignia without having any idea that they were doing such a thing. What about the symbols now claimed as official insignia that native American tribes have used or are using for commercial purposes themselves, marketing everything from food to closing to crafted goods? If they're using these marks commercially, what kind of problems would that lead to? This prohibition and this type of prohibition could also lead to more and more groups seeking special protection and lead to accusations of discrimination by any group that does not receive protection under such a prohibition, and this could be anywhere from a Native American tribe whose symbol is not considered official and doesn't get their symbol on the list to an unrecognized group to groups other than Native Americans. There are, of course, plenty of ethnic groups from all origin in this country, and everybody from England to other parts of Europe to Africa to Asia have sacred symbols and cultural identities that have various connotations that may deem special protection. Who decides which groups are worthy, and if protection is denied, would failure to protect, provide equal protection constitute discrimination? Section 2(b), which is what we've been talking about here, of the Trademark Act, prohibits registration of any mark that consists of our comprises the flag or coat of arms or other insignia of the United States or of any state of municipality or of any foreign nation or of any simulation thereof. The proposal to equate Native American symbols with the flags and the insignia of the United States and other nations may have unintended consequences. It's true that no one may register or appropriate for their own private use the American flag or other U.S. insignia, but it's a fact that the American flag is used widely, and U.S. insignia is used widely for advertising or promotional purposes. I think we've all seen restaurants, the Perkins Restaurant chain with the big American flag out front. If you go just south on I-95, just south of the Beltway, there's at least one car dealer which uses a huge American flag out front as a way to attract business. Every time there's a patriotic holiday from July 4th to President's Day to Memorial Day you see ads in the newspapers with bunting, with American flags used all over the place. It is ubiquitous and used all the time for commercial purposes as are other American symbols, and so are a symbols and the flags of other countries. French restaurants often have French flags out front and other French official insignia out front. Italian restaurants, Irish pubs, just to name a few. The list goes on. The putting of the Native American official insignia, equating official insignia with the flag, could have exactly the wrong result. You'd end up with everybody being free to use the official insignia in the same way the American flag is used for just about everything, and I don't think that's what we have in mind. Relief is available for Native Americans under the current statute, and they've used it successfully in the Redskins case, and it's under, of course, Section 2(a) as has been discussed earlier. If a registration of a mark would be immoral, scandalous, or disparaging, 2(a) is the appropriate section of the current statute, and it's been the avenue of successful use and being used now, as the last speaker mentioned, in a number of other cases. Registration of marks have been denied in a number of cases on religious grounds, other than just in the case of Native American symbols. These cases, I believe, we believe, form the appropriate body of law on which to base the opposition of cancellation and to study this issue. Blanket protection for the official insignia for all federally and state-recognized Native American tribes would inflict serious harm on trademark owners, especially if protection is granted retrospectively. A retrospective law could raise serious constitutional takings issues which must be taken into account in any study. Unless use of a mark is likely to cause confusion or association, as a couple of speakers ago I believe mentioned, as to source, sponsorship, or affiliation, or as immoral, scandalous, or disparaging, the standards which already may afford Native American tribes ample opportunities to defend their rights, no additional prohibitions or restrictions are needed. INTA believes that allowing any group to block use of a design or a symbol as a mark simply because the mark may have strong cultural historical significance to that group will set a dangerous precedent. MS. MARSH: Thank you. MS MELTZER: Thank you. In a portion of your testimony, you referred to possible implications for the United States international obligations. Using an example, we provide broad statutory protection to marks such as the Boy Scouts and the Red Cross. In your experience, what objections, if any, have been raised by the international community to this type of specialized broad protection? MR. BROOKS: I'm not specifically familiar with those. There have been problems with some of the Olympic marks in the past where some of the rights claimed to have been extremely broad, and usually these things are negotiated out. I'm not aware of any actual litigation on any of those that have gone all the way to a decision, because the litigants just decide it's not worth the money; but in a number of cases, the Olympics have managed--the United States Olympic Committee has managed to stop or make agreements with people in fields completely unrelated to sporting goods or to sports promotion or to sporting events because of their special statute. MS. MELTZER: Just to follow up, if that's the case, if the USOC has been able to stop people unrelated maybe to a core business, has that raised any objection in the international community? MR. BROOKS: I'm not aware specifically of any. That doesn't mean that it hasn't happened. MS. MARSH: Thank you. MR. BROOKS: Thank you. 12. ROBERT GOFF MS. MARSH: Our next speaker is Mr. Robert Goff who represents the Crazy Horse estate. MR. GOFF: Thank you. Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to make a few comments here this morning. I would like to reserve an opportunity to provide you with a written, set of written comments as well after the close of the hearing today. My name is Robert Goff. I am the attorney for the estate of Crazy Horse, the famed Lokota leader who protected his people and their cultural ways in the last century, gave his life doing that. I am the attorney for the estate because the estate, the family of Crazy Horse, the descendant family who still reside the reservations in South Dakota on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, the Cheyenne River Reservation, and the Pine Ridge Reservation were extremely concerned and outraged by the use of his name on a malt liquor product. There were a couple of references made to the cases and this whole issue here, and I will just make a couple of comments about this and go on to more general comments with regard to some of the problems with protections of this sort of thing under existing law. The primary problem, and this case heads this up, is that the exploitation of Indian names, Indian imagery, and the like is presumed natural under our laws. As Michael Haine said suggested, talking about the Museum of Natural History, finding Indians in there with the lions and tigers and bears and dinosaurs and the like, Indians are seen as part of the natural world of this continent, part of the natural environment. As such, they are seen to be part of the public domain, part of the natural resources of this continent to be drawn upon for exploitation and use in economic commerce and trade. The use of the name Crazy Horse rarely passes--the name rarely passes the lips of family members in South Dakota on the reservations. The name is held in such high regard that the closest relatives hesitate to utter the words. That's how powerful the act of speaking a word is, much less writing it down. They've learned a lot of about writing down things. The treaty history that the Lokota and other nations have gone through have taught them great lessons about the power of the written world and what it can take away, what promises it can make and what it can take away. The concern about violating the spirit of those who have gone on before and particularly those who are most powerful, very powerful, is still held. I'll give you a quote. "A human being's name is a principle component of his person, perhaps a piece of his soul." Now, this wasn't a Lokota who said this. This was someone respected in the U.S. Sigmond Freud said this in trying to understand human psychology. So it's not a foreign concept to understand that one's name can be held sacred. The family hesitates to use it, hesitates to utter it, and in fact has lived for the last 120-plus years since his death in not associated themselves with him out of his request. He was murdered. He told his family don't talk about me to the whites out of fear of what could happen to them, and they've honored that, and there have been occasional uses of the name Crazy Horse, and in the course of the malt liquor controversy, we've learned that there are a number of uses far and wide internationally. Bars in Paris, we heard about bars in Georgetown and Anchorage, Alaska. These aren't places normally frequented by people who live--and you saw in the TV news last week what the conditions are at Pine Ridge. These aren't people who are frequenting these areas to know about this kind of usage, but the kind of usage that is on the malt liquor came to the attention of the families; and one of the family members had to break this code of silence, and he went and asked permission of his larger--his family, could I--let me step out of this silence, let me be recognized as someone who is related to Crazy Horse and use his name and they agreed. So an estate, a probate action was taken so that one person, administrator of that state would have legal authority to deal in the Non-Indian system to try to protect that name. That was a big action in and of itself. That was a major violation of Mr. Big Crow. Seth H. Big Crow, who is the administrator, said I can never go home again. He can go back to South Dakota, but he cannot enter that circle of having respected that silence, and that he will carry the rest of his life, but he's done that. I mention that when people say that it doesn't cost you a dime to defend a name, it may cost you your honor. It may cost you your life. It may cost you your relations, your normal relationships to be able to do that. It costs a lot, and we're not even talking about financial costs, which to file lawsuits, to defend lawsuits, to defend on appeals, right up to line costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So I take great exception to the fact that there may be a public institution that it would not cost us a dime to have a decision come from, but it costs quite a bit. I would like to take this opportunity right now to express the gratitude and the thanks of the Lokota people, the reservations I've mentioned, and elsewhere who have sent letters, who have objected to the use of the name to this office, to the Patent and Trademark Office, particularly in the malt liquor case and were successful in having not one, but two decisions, because two applications for the use of the Crazy Horse on a malt liquor were filed here with this office and were rejected, once rejected for disparagement and the fact that there was a particular law on the books. That law was later overturned under Constitutional commercial speech rights, but then a second decision came out here after a second application came in, and that second application in even stronger words appreciated the concerns of the Lokota people on this particular point, and we thank you for that. I thank you on behalf of the Lokota people for that, but that was quite a struggle to bring all of that about, and it still raises the problem. People ask us, well, why don't you just copyright the name? Why don't you just trademark the name and then you'll have the protections, you'll be able to use it exclusively? Well, perhaps if we were going into the carpet business or some localized business. Maybe we should put out iced tea with that name. The company that makes the Crazy Horse malt liquor makes a product called Arizona Iced Tea. The fact that it comes from Brooklyn, New York doesn't seem to bother those concerned of geographic origins, however I'm sure if we came out with a product that was called Crazy Horse iced tea, we would have--I know it. We would have lawsuits filed against us by the makers of the malt liquor saying that we are infringing upon their use of the name, and they may not have trademark registration, but they have common law trademark protections, and I would like to have the financial equivalent of the dime it would cost us to battle those kinds of suits. One of the problems with the trademark law and one of the problems that we have in this particular case, since it's real person and a real name belonging to a real person, is that we could use it. We could get a mark, but what if we choose not the use it, which is what the family has chosen? They've chosen not to use it. They won't say it. They're not likely to go out and use it in trade. This is a fundamental value for the family, not that we may not have to do that in order to protect it. The whole family may have to break that 100-year tradition and do something that would be recognized under Anglo law, the larger Anglo law, not just trademark protection, but the larger Anglo-Saxon law. These are the concerns that we have. The names of normal people aren't protected under trademark, first of all. Your names aren't protected. Only if you use it in trades and it's connected with a product and it's a secondary kind of protection. If you want to not use it, the law seems to favor anyone else using it, and then they get exclusive use of it within the area that they use it. These are some of the concerns. I have a few comments I would like to finish with regard to comments that were made here. There was just in the malt liquor category, for example, Powermaster beer was the original name for the malt liquor that was produced by Heileman, sold under--later sold under Crazy Horse. That name was rejected because the black community saw that the advertisements associated with Powermaster were making associations that didn't go necessarily to the black community but went to the fortification of alcohol, and that was rejected by the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. They could not get a certificate of label approval for that. The government rejected that. The company came back with Black Sunday. That was rejected because of the associations perhaps to the book or the film or to black in the word or the malt liquor market being largely black and Hispanic. The name was changed to Crazy Horse. That was approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because there seemed to be nothing wrong with that name, which was the reason we ultimately came to the Patent and Trademark Office because that's where the fight moved. The uses of other Indian names and imagery on packaging not only occurs in the United States but internationally. We were confronted with a photograph of a Rosebud Sioux named Full Bull, and these were put on a Swedish package of potato chips called Full Bull Chips. We don't know whether the Swedish company realized Full Bull stands for--it's buffalo, male buffalo, and what they were selling were buffalo chips, and I'm sure that if people realized what the packaging really meant, they may have moved on to other products. The issue came up with regard to registration. All the tribes have to do are register, register this, register that. I would submit that the United States Government and the Indian tribes that it has federally- recognized relations with through treaties and other statutes, we have prior registration. Go to the date of the treaty. If you see that the tribe has signed its name on a document with the federal government, they are now registered by that date, and if Mohawk Carpet comes in later, we need to understand that they are a later registrant and have been trespassing perhaps on a name, especially if they're coupling it with an image of an Indian. If they're taking it just from the valley, let's see pictures of the valley. Let's see pictures of trees. Let's see pictures of rivers. If they're associated it with Indians, let's see back rent. Let's see the financial compensation for having trespassed on an image and a name associated with the tribe that was registered since the 1700s, since the beginning of this country. The concerns we have with regard to trademarks do not stop here. They don't stop in the United States. As I said, there's products overseas. The United States, however, is in a very critical position in many ways and in one particular way. What you do at the Patent and Trademark Office is likely to be the model for how domain names will be set up or the internet for worldwide commerce and the organizations. ICAN and other groups will be looking to what you do as the reference point. They will be looking to what is protected and what is not, and they will be basically reflecting what you do on to the rest of the world into cyberspace where commerce that we've seen here in the advertisements that have been talked about will be insignificant compared to the international commerce that is projected for that whole arena, and the exclusive use by corporations that take these names and use them will be depriving tribes of their property rights in the international cyber domain of commerce as well. So you've got that extra burden of responsibility to realize people are looking at you and taking that model worldwide into cyberspace. When I mention the registration of tribes in prior registration and the fact that names are not protected, strictly personal names are not protected under the trademark law, and if you don't use them in trade, you have very little protection within that scheme of the law. The fact of the matter is not only are tribal names registered with the federal government, but we have a Bureau of Indian Affairs that has the name of every enrolled member of any of those American Indian tribes. No other ethic group in this country has their own bureau in the United States government with all of those names on file. If you need to cite to names and have any concerns about it, you could cite to those names, and at least for the first round of consideration, that would need to be reviewed. I would like to say that my appearance here today is not part of a consultation process, and we would certainly welcome consultation with the tribes that is part of your trust responsibility to the Indian tribes and the protection of their rights and their property. You, the United States Government, have a prior duty to American Indians to protect their rights and their property. You get that through the commerce clause of the Constitution. So you've got two of the highest orders of authority, treaties and the Constitution that direct you to protect us first. I will leave you with an image that came in cartoon form several years ago, an old Indian man sitting in a barren area, nothing but mountains in the far horizon, and he said: "First they came and took the beaver, and then they came and took the trees, and then they came and took the water--this is in an era when mineral development and exploration was coming back to the United States--he says" "And they left us here with only rocks, and now they're coming for the rocks." And you know, that was 20 years ago. Fifteen years ago, the effort in this country was realizing so much garbage, so much waste. The federal government regulates it. The states regulate it. We'll bury it on reservations, and there was a land rush for waste deposits on reservations. I can see that same Indian man sitting there. He said: "They came for the rocks, and they left us with nothing but holes in the ground, and now they're coming for the holes in the ground. It's a good thing I didn't give them my name." Thank you. 13. E. LEONARD RUBIN MS. MARSH: We have one more speaker, Leonard Rubin from the University of Illinois. MR. RUBIN: First, thank you for allowing me to appear today to give my comments. Secondly, what I'd like to do is give you a better copy of our written remarks than I transmitted by e-mail late last night; and thirdly, wow. I came late, but I've heard a lot of testimony as have you. I am not here for rebuttal of that testimony necessarily, unless you would like to hear some. But my impression of the reasons for these hearings is not necessarily to review all of the transgressions that have occurred in connection with the maltreatment of Native American peoples over the years. I do not mean, by that remark, to say that I am indifferent to them. I am highly sympathetic to them, but I thought we were here to talk about trademark law, about trademark regulations and not about general injustice, and I believe that those discussions involve broader Constitutional issues than simply narrow considerations of how this agency, the Patent and Trademark Office might attempt to remedy some of the injustices that have occurred in the past. If, in fact, there is a way for this office to remedy those injustices, of course I think we all favor that. I don't know anyone who--I personally don't know anyone who is unsympathetic to those aims, but the problem is that, as courts have noted and as I think common sense dictates, trademark laws should not be used for means of opponents of offensive speech to circumvent the First Amendment. There are many ways of dealing with offensive speech, but violation of the First Amendment is not one of them under our laws, under our Constitution, never mind under the trademark laws; and there's a doctrine called unconstitutional conditions, and it means that the government may not deny a benefit to a person on the basis of protected speech activities even if that benefit is only a privilege and not a right. That's discussed by Professor Melville Nimmer. It has--the theory has been upheld in courts. I believe that it's really disingenuous to maintain that the issuance of a trademark is somehow a government endorsement of the mark. It doesn't imply government endorsement of the quality of the goods or of the services represented by the mark, and so the issuance of a trademark, once having occurred, ends, the government involvement in that trademark, and then it becomes a question of how it is used, whether it is used offensively, whether it is used in a demeaning or a degrading manner, and then that trademark office has the power to do something about that, witness the Harjo case. I have to admit that the appeal to collective guilt is a very powerful one. It works on me. It works on most of us. I just wonder whether that particular kind of an appeal is appropriate in order to violate basic Constitutional rights and Constitutional privileges. What I'm saying is that the government should not withhold the privileges of trademark registration, whatever they happen to be, based on ideological content, no matter how offensive, especially where the announced goal of that particular kind of withholding is to prevent the marks from being used at all. The fact that protected speech may be offensive to some doesn't justify its suppression under the United States form of government and under the United States Constitution. We are all faced every day with examples of offensive speech, and what we have heard this morning in the way of testimony here has included a plethora of examples of offensive speech. They are offensive to me. They are undoubtedly offensive to you. They are undoubtedly offensive to everyone in this room who has heard them, if not offensive to the people who created them; but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily prohibited from being uttered because of trademark laws, certainly, and they're certainly not prohibited from being uttered under the U.S. Constitution under the First Amendment. If the purpose of these hearings is to consider whether there should be a modification to the First Amendment, that would be one thing. I don't believe that's the purpose of the hearings, but the Supreme Court of the United States has held in a case entitled Buckner v. Velejo- -and I have a citation for it if you'd like it--that the concept that the government may restrict the speech of some elements of society in order the enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment. Another point that I raise in my written comments is the possibility of deprivation of property without due process. Like everyone else who has spoken this morning, I am concerned about the misuse of trademarks--excuse me--the misuse of sacred symbols. Whether they belong to Indian tribes or whether they belong to any other particular religious group, they should not be misused. You have heard testimony this morning to the effect that present trademark laws provide a remedy for that type of misuse. Something else that I've heard this morning about names makes he scratch my head, because the purpose of trademark law, since its inception in the United States and before that under the laws of Great Britain from which our laws of course are derived, was to mark a product or a service in some sort of special fashion in order to denote the source of those goods or services. If I file an application on an intent to use basis saying that I intend to use a trademark on a product or service, and then I don't use it, my application must fall, and it does fall because the purpose of a trademark, of course, is to distinguish and identify goods or services. To retire marks, to retire names based on no use at all, it seems to me runs exactly contrary to the basic purpose of trademark law. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting in this hearing that there are not other ways to attack this problem, the problem of the retiring of names, the problem of disrespectful or offensive references to sacred symbols. I would wholly support other ways of attacking this problem. What I'm suggesting to the panel this morning is that trademark law is not the way to do it, especially in terms of an amendment to the trademark law or to the regulations that in some strange and arcane manner result in indefinable kinds of restrictions on other Constitutional guarantees such as First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment. I just can't help but note that since the first amendment does not distinguish between offensive and acceptable speech, there is a serious problem connected with any attempt at legislation that would attempt to accomplish the goal of restricting even offensive speech, speech that I'm offended at; but as Voltaire has so often been quoted as saying, "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Questions? MS. COHN: I have one. MS. MARSH: Go ahead. MS. COHN: Just for maybe my own clarification, but possibly others, when you talk about the rights, First Amendment rights-- MR. RUBIN: Yes. MS. COHN: --and contrast them or talk about them with trademark rights, you do know that Section 2(a) of the statute prohibits registration of something that's scandalous, disparaging, or offensive to a particular person or group or institution. So I'm not sure whether you're advocating not applying 2(a) or whether you are simply talking about the use or free speech separate from trademark registration. MR. RUBIN: Thank you. I'm sorry if I confused you. I am advocating the use of Section 2(a) in order to determine whether trademarks are offensive or degrading, etc. I am not, today at least, going to get into a lengthy discussion about whether there are Constitutional problems with 2(a). I would like to let that particular baby rest in its cradle; but as far as the application of 2(a) is concerned, I am advocating. MS. COHN: Okay. And just to clarify another point that you made, when the Patent and Trademark Office examines a use-based trademark application, the manner in which the mark is used is looked at by the office in determining registrability, in particular under Section 2(a) of the statute. So it's not--and I think you characterized the registration process as being separate from what the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board may do in a cancellation proceeding such as the Harjo decision, and that is true. It's a separate process, however many of the considerations are ones that should be examined during the initial examination of the mark when it's applied for. MR. RUBIN: I agree. MS. MELTZER: Thank you very much, and Debbie, thank you for asking some of the questions that were also on my mind. You intriguingly mentioned that there could be other ways to attack, quote, this problem, which is the protection of those symbols that might be of some importance to Native Americans. Do you have any recommendations, any suggestions today as to what those other--those alternatives might be? MR. RUBIN: Probably. Of course there are separate and distinct acts of Congress relating to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, and there could be-- again, as Mr. Haine suggested, there could be a dialogue between appropriate members of Congress and appropriate representatives of various Native American tribes to determine what constitutes the kinds of sacred symbols, sacred representations, items of tremendous importance to Native American people, but I think that that kind of a dialogue would be useful because, for example, in reading some of the written comments submitted prior to these hearings, I noted that there is a particular Pueblo tribe that indicated that it has been using its symbol since at least the middle 1980s. I scratch my head and wonder where that kind of history would qualify that symbol for separation from the public domain and recognition as a kind of ancient historical symbol worthy of special protection. I'm not giving you an answer to that. I'm just saying that these are things that should be considered. Mr. Haine mentioned a number of times the University of Illinois, my client for whom I am here. The Illinois, as I don't need to tell Mr. Haine, is actually a collection of tribes. It is not a single tribe. I bring that up because who represents this particular collection of tribes which included many, many distinct tribes, the Peoria? I won't go into the list, but the point is that we can talk about generalities in terms of protection of sacred Native American symbols, but that really doesn't get us anywhere until we narrow the field, find out exactly what we're talking about. There is no tribe called the Illinois. The word Illinois, in fact, is a French derivation of the confederation of tribes called the Illinois. I don't mean to go into Native American history here. I am not qualified to do that, and I don't pretend to be except where my client is concerned. I have done some research. So the state is named after the confederation of tribes. The university is named after the state. The university does have as one of its symbols Chief Illinois, but it's not a caricature. It is a respectful drawing of a face with headdress. I'm not here to debate whether that is appropriate or inappropriate in the context of these hearings. All I'm really saying to you is that there needs to be a lot more discussion about exactly what it is that should be considered, who are the appointed representatives, what and who do they represent, and how do they want these images protected. I'm sorry to drag this on except to mention that there have been several references to the commercial use by Indian tribes themselves, of some of their names, symbols, etc., and perhaps that should not be a problem, but that's something else that should be considered. Any other questions? [No response.] MR. RUBIN: Thank you very much. MS. MARSH: Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience who wants to speak with a comment? Yes, in the back. MR. BROUSE: I just quickly wanted to make a comment about some of the comments that have been made, and one of them is that we would like to submit some videotape to show you the respectfulness that the Chief Illinois and the Illinoisan show for Indian people in their performance of their mascot. We also would like to--we would like to invite some of the tribal members from some of the tribes from Illinois had they not all been killed and removed to Oklahoma in a trail of tears. Unfortunately, they can't be here to testify for their sacred symbols. So I'd just like to bring up those two points. MS. MARSH: I think we'd be happy to accept a videotape if you want to arrange to deliver it. Yes? MR. HAINE: I'd just like to state I have resolutions from the tribes of Oklahoma. They're unanimous in their letters to the board in asking to abolish, cease and desist using our symbols and likenesses, and again I'd like to just say that we would like to ask your office to go to a hearing status. You recently issued a patent protection for the University of Illinois, the Chief Illinois symbol, and we are having a--request the city--are objecting to the issuance of that and asking for a hearing on it. MS. MELTZER: Excuse me. Can I make three comments? For the record, the first speaker after Mr. Rubin was Gary Brouse of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Mr. Michael Haine who is the director of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media spoke next, and the third person giving some testimony from the floor is Kathy DeYoung who is an examining attorney from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Brouse requested that he be able to submit a videotape with some evidence with respect to if University of Illinois. Mr. Haine requested that the office consider more active field hearings or public hearings, especially with respect to specific cases, and Ms. DeYoung is going to make some further comments. Unfortunately, we have to read this into the record because the testimony from the floor, unless you're at the microphone, can't be heard. Thanks. MS. DEYOUNG: Mr. Haine suggested that he was going the send in some comments about recent approval. The one I'm aware of is the letter. At this point, you would not send a letter of protest. You would wait until the mark is published and file an objection, an opposition. MS. MARSH: Yes. I don't know that we need to discuss this at this proceeding. MR. GOFF: Robert Goff again with the estate of Crazy Horse. I just wanted to clarify a remark, a comment that was made. Mr. Brouse indicated that the estate of Crazy Horse and members of the family were in discussions with Liz Claiborne who sells a brand called Crazy Horse, and I just wanted to make it clear on the record that those discussions were aimed for the removal of that name of that logo of that mark from circulation by Liz Claiborne. That was a nature of those discussions, and he didn't finish-- didn't make the full statement about the nature of those discussions. So I just want that clear, that we were discussing to have that name removed on behalf of the family of crazy horse. Thank you. MS. MARSH: Thank you. Any more comments? [No response.] MS. MARSH: Very good. Thank you all again for coming. I think we got a great deal of very useful information and a number of different perspectives on these issues. Again, as Eleanor mentioned, if you have additional comments or materials you would like us to see, we would like to have those by July 30th. Thank you. [Whereupon, at 12:37 a.m., the meeting was adjourned.]