Source: San Francisco Chronicle
A San Francisco motorcycle club gained long-sought legal approval Monday for its trademark of the name "Dykes on Bikes" when the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a challenge from a lawyer who said the term denigrated men.

Without comment, the justices denied review of an appeal by Michael McDermott of Dublin, who challenged a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to grant the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent exclusive rights over the commercial use of Dykes on Bikes.

The motorcycle club applied for a trademark in 2003 after using Dykes on Bikes for three decades as the moniker of the motorized unit that leads San Francisco's annual Gay Pride Parade.

The trademark office initially rejected the application, saying the name was disparaging to lesbians, but approved it in January 2006 after the club submitted evidence that activists were trying to reclaim dykes as a term of pride.

McDermott, a self-described men's rights advocate, objected to the trademark office and the courts, arguing that the term was disparaging - to men - as well as "scandalous and immoral." Those categories are grounds for denial of a trademark.

Without addressing those claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which rules on patent and trademark issues, dismissed McDermott's case in July, saying he could not show that he would be harmed by the designation.

Asked for comment on the Supreme Court's decision Monday, McDermott replied with an e-mail quoting Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent from a 2003 ruling overturning state sodomy laws, in which Scalia said the court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."

Full article: 'Dykes on Bikes' trademark OKd - challenger rebuffed by high court