The federal government has ruled against a trademark for an Asian-American rock band because it feels the band's name is "disparaging" to Asians.

The Slants argued that it has a First Amendment right to the name before a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday of last week, according to a Fox News report. Lawyers told the court that the federal government cannot censor ethnic slurs or offensive speech.

The group's frontman, Simon Tam, describes their music as "Chinatown dance rock" and told Reuters that naming the band The Slants was a way to reclaim the racial slur. Besides, he said, very few Asians find it offensive.

According to the report, after the patent agency rejected the name, the band appealed, only to be dismissed by a three-judge appellate panel. This sent the case to be reviewed by the circuit's 12 judges. The Slants have an uphill battle as federal law prohibits any trademarks which could be misconstrued as disparaging.

Reuters states that the judges, at this point, are evenly divided, partly due to the band's lawyer telling them the First Amendment "requires all speech, no matter how offensive, not be restricted or gate-kept in any way." However, one judge remarked that the purpose of the First Amendment is not "to help people make a political statement or prevent people from making a political statement."

This case easily conjures the case of the Washington Redskins controversy, where the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the team's trademarks because they considered "redskins" to be offensive to Native Americans. If The Slants end up with a trademark, that decision could have an impact on the Redskins case.