‘No [Bleeps] Given’ Shut Down By USPTO

The USPTO rejected one man’s efforts to trademark the slang phrase “no fucks given” for clothing items, ruling: “The fact that profane words may be uttered more freely in contemporary American society than in the past does not render such words any less profane.” The Patent Office cited UrbanDictionary and KnowYourMeme.com in its response, but found that the traditional dictionary’s definition of “fuck” made the proposed phrase “scandalous because it conveys the commercial connotation of ‘no coitus given.’” The USPTO’s reasoning “is something akin to a person swearing in something other than their native tongue, i.e. badly and far too literally,” Tim Cushing writes in TechDirt.