Most trademark and patent applications can seem dry and boring. But this week, the U.S. authority on trademarks ruled that the word fuck belongs to everybody.
In 1990, Erik Brunetti started a clothing brand for skateboarders called FUCT. That nominally stood for "Friends U Can't Trust," but it was mostly chosen because phonetically, it would read as fucked. In 2011, Brunetti filed to trademark the name in an attempt to crack down on counterfeiters. Importantly, trademarks grant someone the legal right to be the only person who may profit from a particular brand, whether it's a word, phrase, or symbol.
