![Size of Trump's hands at center of Supreme Court trademark case: 'Trump Too Small'](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-1576871423.jpg)
Size of Trump's hands at center of Supreme Court trademark case: 'Trump Too Small'
Fox News
The Supreme Court is set to decide if a derogatory political slogan towards former President Donald Trump can be trademarked without his consent, weighing free speech protections.
In 2017, Steve Elster, a politically active Democrat attorney in California, wanted to get the phrase "Trump Too Small" printed on T-shirts to sell. The phrase originated from an exchange on the 2016 debate stage between Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The Florida senator made a crude joke in reference to the size of the former president’s hands. Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
But when Elster sought to trademark the slogan, he was denied by the PTO, and the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board upheld the decision, because the mark identified Trump without his consent.
The decision was reversed by a federal circuit court, noting that Elster’s trademark goes to "the heart of the First Amendment," and held that the government has no plausible "interest in restricting speech critical of government officials or public figures in the trademark context."