Can a nigga get a patent?

[Taehoon]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology...l?tw=rss.index

By Rogers Cadenhead | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Feb, 23, 2006 EST

The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term "Nigga" for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals.

Wayans wants to dress customers in 14 kinds of attire from tops to bottoms, and use the controversial mark on "clothing, books, music and general merchandise," as well as movies, TV and the internet, according to his applications.

But, so far, his applications have been unsuccessful. Trademark examiner Kelly Boulton rejected the registration dated Dec. 22, citing a law that prohibits marks that are "immoral or scandalous." A previous attempt by Wayans was turned down on identical grounds six months earlier.

"While debate exists about in-group uses of the term, 'nigga' is almost universally understood to be derogatory," Boulton wrote to Wayans' attorney, William H. Cox, according to the application.

Cox and other representatives of the actor did not respond to interview requests about the registration.

Wayans can appeal the rejection, but experts in trademark law differ on his chances for success.

Lynda Zadra-Symes, a trademark lawyer in California, said Wayans may be successful. She compared "Nigga" to the successful registration of Dykes on Bikes. The San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent fought the Trademark Office for three years to overturn an initial rejection of a Dykes on Bikes trademark. The mark was published Jan. 24.

"Because the application was by a group of lesbians it was eventually allowed to publish," Zadra-Symes said.

"This is a great victory," the group proclaimed on its website. "It affirms our right to determine who we are and how we present ourselves to the world."

However, Tawnya Wojciechowski, another trademark attorney practicing in California, compared Wayans' application to the ongoing legal case where Washington Redskins trademarks have been challenged by seven Native Americans. "They're going to have a really tough time," Wojciechowski predicted.

The word "nigga" is ubiquitous in hip-hop music, where it provides half of a rhyming couplet radio listeners never get to hear in the Grammy-winning song "Gold Digger" by Kanye West.

Ol' Dirty Bastard used the term 76 times in the 1999 album Nigga Please, not counting repetitions in a chorus.

In January, an episode of the late-night Cartoon Network series Boondocks was criticized for putting the word in the mouth of a fictionalized Martin Luther King Jr.

The effort to commercialize "nigga" drew a sharp response from a black school official who participated in a forum about the word earlier this month at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

"I don't care for it in any form," said Dr. Lonnie Williams, associate vice chancellor for student affairs. "Either way you pronounce it, spell it, anything associated with it -- I find it offensive."

If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using "Nigga" on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business.

Rhodan attempted to register "Nigga'Clothing" as a trademark in 2001 and was denied by the Trademark Office.

"They said it was disparaging," he said.

Rhodan, who is black, said that he's sold around 2,000 of the shirts at events. When he began selling the shirts, emblazoned with the term "Nigga," he thought he would take criticism, especially from older people.

"I was in the mall with one of the shirts on, and an old lady said, 'Where did you get that shirt from?'" he said, expecting the worst. "She followed me to the car and bought five shirts for her grandchildren."

Rhodan believes that affectionate use of the term within the black community should make it an acceptable mark, but the Trademark Office has thus far has not been persuaded by that argument.

"The very fact that debate is ongoing regarding in-group usage, shows that a substantial composite of African-Americans find the term 'nigga' to be offensive," Boulton wrote in rejecting Wayans.

Though attempts to commercialize "Nigga" coincide with a generational shift in how the word is perceived, the clothing is still likely to test some boundaries, as Rhodan demonstrated in a phone interview.

"You couldn't wear it," he said.

It will be awesome when he goes international and can sell muslims some Sand Nigga Turbans.

[Big W Powah!]

..This post would be complete without the obligitory Nigga please.


So...

Nigga Please

[Metranon]

wut?

[Makata]

Time for a half-serious post ..

I hope it goes through. I really do. It will be the first in several steps to completely remove the stigma from this word and bring it into our culture. There's like 20 appropriate times I could be using it every day (none of them derogatory) and I don't get to do it once, which sucks.

I will gladly wear Nigga (tm) brand jeans over my fat white ass.

[Bralkan]

I want to pass so that it will clearly mark all those who are truly the consumer whores of all consumer whores.

[Anyen]

I will gladly wear Nigga (tm) brand jeans over my fat white ass.

And all the Nigga's will promptly beat your fat white ass.

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Makata

Time for a half-serious post ..

I hope it goes through. I really do. It will be the first in several steps to completely remove the stigma from this word and bring it into our culture. There's like 20 appropriate times I could be using it every day (none of them derogatory) and I don't get to do it once, which sucks.

I will gladly wear Nigga (tm) brand jeans over my fat white ass.

Black people need to stop prolonging their sitgma.

[Itzena]

Obligatory link

[Samus Aran]

These clothes will go great with my "Kanye West for President" shirt!

[Lord Thanos]

Soon as this gets approved, am gonna go trademark Spic, as a hispanic, it's ok for me to do it

Man I can see the money rolling in from my new clothing line!

Brb, I gotta call George Lopez to finance this for me

[Eomer]

I can hardly wait to release my "Wop", "Frog", and "Dirty Polack" clothing lines...

[Wiretwister]

Perhaps "Cracka' Clothing" ?

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Anyen

And all the Nigga's will promptly beat your fat white ass.

Oh please. I already look retarded when I wear my Fubu and Ecko that everyone, black and white, laughs both at and with me (depending on their particular opinion). If you walk through a ghetto with "NIGGA" emblazoned on your chest yea maybe .. but this shit will be a hit in civilized society.

I guarantee it.

[simeon]

"Nigga Wear" just makes me laugh. A bit redundant though, don't you think? It's like Blaezen having the word "Fat" scrolling across his chest.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Anyen

And all the Nigga's will promptly beat your fat white ass.

Just to address this for a moment: The minute you call my white ass nigga is the minute you give up your right to be pissed when I call you char broiled, nigga, or anything else of that nature.

Thats the thing that always irked me, to be honest...My black friends calling me nigga and getting pissed off when I did the same.

News flash: If you, as a black person, call somebody nigga, that is saying that you don't mind the word used at all, and shouldn't be pissed when you get called it yourself.


That said: I'll roll through the hood with about 5 different color'd bandana's on, hanging out my sun roof with a Nigga hoodie on flashing about 6 different gang signs made from paper glued to card-board cut outs that are attached to sticks.