Earlier this week, Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi presented oral argument in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, requesting that the court overturn the denial of the trademark application for “Stop Islamisation of America” and “SIOA.” The USPTO rejected AFDI’s application because it deemed that the trademark disparaged Muslims and linked them to terrorism.
In its appeal to the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (TTAB), AFLC argued that “Islamisation” is not broadly defined as all things Islamic or even merely a religious conversion of an individual or society to Islam.  Rather, it is the process of implementing sharia as the law of the land into a society in order to create a sectarian political system based upon sharia (i.e., Islamic law).