(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court said owners of vulgar and lewd product names can get federal trademark protection, ruling that a century-old restriction on those rights violates the constitutional free-speech guarantee.

Siding with the creator of a clothing line known as "FUCT," the justices threw out a federal law that banned the inclusion of "scandalous" and "immoral" trademarks on a government registry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net

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