People are filing to trademark the phrase ‘From the river to the sea.’ Will that make it any less common?
A handmade sign bearing the slogan, “From the river to the sea,” is carried by demonstrators Oct. 22 in Brussels, Belgium. Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
By Beth Harpaz November 24, 2023
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has received applications to trademark the phrases “From the river to the sea” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
But if the applicants’ goal is to stop pro-Palestine protesters from using the slogans to criticize Israel, they’re unlikely to succeed, according to an expert on trademark law.
The application to trademark the phrase “From the river to the sea” for use on T-shirts was filed Nov. 8 by Oron Rosenkranz from a Philadelphia address. Paperwork for the longer slogan was filed Nov. 17 for use on hats and T-shirts from a Pine Brook, New Jersey, address, identified by Newsweek and The Jerusalem Post as belonging to Joel Ackerman.
Neither Rosenkranz nor Ackerman responded to phone calls and emails from the Forward.
A quixotic effort
Tamar Yellin, a trademark attorney with the Virginia-based firm Eden Law, said in a phone call that efforts to trademark the slogans were quixotic at best.
The individuals seeking rights would have to prove that they themselves are selling products bearing those phrases in order to stop others from doing so, she said.
“You only have rights to a trademark when you’re using it,” she said. Winning trademark rights for the slogans also would not prevent them from being used in other contexts — for example, as the name of a restaurant, or some other type of venture. And such a win would not curtail protesters’ free speech rights to use the slogan.
Yellin added that it takes months for applications to be processed. And, even if the two applications regarding “from the river to the sea” were approved, anyone who was already using the phrase on hats or T-shirts before these applications were filed could keep doing so.
“Priority of use is a big thing in trademark law,” she said. “If someone has been using the mark before you file the application, they can continue to use it.”
T-shirts, face masks and other products bearing the slogan “from the river to the sea” or variations thereof are all already being sold online.
‘Either way, it’s funny’
Yellin’s posts on the social media platform Threads about the legal fine points of the applications didn’t dampen glee from some quarters over efforts to trademark the phrase.
“Either way, it is funny,” said one observer, adding that spending the filing fees “on trolling is money well spent.” Another person called the trademark applications “a fun way to send a quick f—you.”
Yellin said that even if the applicants were to get their claims approved, they’d then have to sue to stop others from using the slogan. That’s expensive and complicated, she said, and courts might look askance at the plaintiffs’ motives if their primary goal is to get the phrase banned altogether.
“That’s not the point of trademarks,” Yellin said. Trademarks aren’t granted in order to eradicate a name, phrase or symbol, but to “show that this mark only comes from one source,” for example, “so that when you buy an iPhone, you know it’s only coming from Apple.”
What does ‘From the river to the sea’ mean?
The slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” has been widely used in chants, on posters and in other contexts by supporters of the Palestinian cause since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, in which 1,200 people were murdered and some 240 were taken hostage.
The phrase originated in the 1960s and has been invoked by Palestinian nationalist movements including the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas. But Israel and some Jewish organizations believe the slogan calls for Israel’s destruction because it describes the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea where Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are located.
The American Jewish Committee calls the slogan “a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers.”
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