Trademarking Juneteenth

In 2022, the United States will officially celebrate Juneteenth for the second time. June 19^th is a significant date because it marks the day in 1865 when Galveston first learned about emancipation. Official celebrations began the next year, and eventually spread across the country. Juneteenth is often considered the day slavery effectively ended.

If you’re unfamiliar with the history and meaning of Juneteenth, I highly recommend participating in the joint celebration today between Rice, Prairie View A&M, and Texas Southern University Alumni Associations; also check out a few of the following sources from Fondren (most link to the catalog entry).

• On Juneteenth (book)

• Reflections on Juneteenth (Session 1 of several; video recorded panel)

• Juneteenth! : celebrating freedom in Texas (book; for the younger audiences)

• Juneteenth : the story behind the celebration (book)
  

Now that Juneteenth is a recognized national holiday, I suspected there would be an increase in people hoping to market on it. I decided to run a basic trademark search in TESS to verify.

Indeed, there is a significant increase in applications for Juneteenth-related marks since 2020. The search returned 65 results, most of which are not registered and several that are “dead”.

The first trademark using Juneteenth—filed, granted, and now dead—is for Juneteenth Audio Books. The application was filed in September 1994, granted a year later, and cancelled in July 2002. See the mark’s documents here.  

 

The most recent registration is for “Juneteenth365”, filed in August 2020 and granted August 2021. See its trademark documents here. 

 

Since Juneteenth365, 40 more applications for Juneteenth-adjacent marks have been filed.

Of course, not all of these results are for marks directly related to Juneteenth. “Love Not #Phear”, serial number 97210083, merely mentions using the colors associated with Juneteenth—red, black and green—for logo variations (I suspect this application will need to be edited before it is accepted, going by the description of mark section). Five other marks do not incorporate Juneteenth at all, but are classified under goods and services related to cultural holidays or celebrations, and the description includes Juneteenth.  

Dead/Abandoned Service Mark, Serial #90401749

I am glad to see that most of the recently proposed trademarks are at the very least on point with the purpose of the holiday: celebrating the freedom unjustly denied to so many Americans. That so many people are choosing to honor the day with relevant celebrations and educational events is a positive sign.

As Juneteenth grows and becomes institutionalized, it may begin to attract a growing number of trademark registrations. It’s still a new national holiday, for all its worthiness. Let’s hope future trademarks continue to be genuine.