Does the federal government have trademark rights, and can those rights be enforced by the military? The answer is yes and yes.
In a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/as-wars-end-military-gives-its-trademarks-new-vigilance.html?_r=0 it was noted that the Marines have filed trademarks 68 times in the past year “for products like Guadalcanal sweatshirts, meant to evoke the World War II battle against the Japanese, and tip of the spear newsletters, named for the motto of the Marine Corps, First Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion .”
These sorts of registrations are being driven by the fact that returning veterans are seeking to open businesses using terms that are confusingly similar to trademarks belonging to the military. One of the interesting twists is that just because a veteran is violating a military trademark, that does not mean that the military will automatically refuse to allow them to continue doing so. Sometimes the military will obtain licensing fees in return for allowing the trademarks to be used. In fact, as the article noted “since 2009 the Marines have collected $5.4 million in such fees, and last year their trademark’s office turned over $700,000 to a morale, welfare and recreation fund.”
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