On Tuesday, June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s holding that BOOKING.COM is a protectable trademark. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had refused registration of Booking.com’s housemark, finding that the mark was generic—in other words, a term that consumers understand as primarily the common or class name for the underlying services. The specific issue before the Court was “[w]hether the addition by an online business of a generic top-level domain (“.com”) to an otherwise generic term can create a protectable trademark.” The Court ultimately sided with the popular online travel company Booking.com in an 8-1 decision, holding that “[a] term styled ‘generic.com’ is a generic name for a class of goods or services only if the term has that meaning to consumers.” The ruling paves the way for the registration of “generic.com” terms upon a showing of acquired distinctiveness—but obtaining such registrations will not be easy, or cheap.
Supreme Court’s Booking.com Ruling Signals Uptick in Registration of ‘Generic.com’ Marks
No Comments
Litigation
- US Inventor Backs SCOTUS Petition to Clarify Claim Construction Principles
- Ericsson Wins Anti-Interference Injunction Against Samsung in Texas FRAND Case
- Supreme Court Will Review Doctrine of Assignor Estoppel
- Patent Filings Roundup: IP Edge End-of-Year Filing Spree, WSOU Ends Year as Top Single-Entity Filer; AC Competitors Go to War Over a Cool Million
- Alice in 2020: Slashing Software Patents and Searching for Functional Language at the Federal Circuit (Part I)
Recent Posts
- ipAwarenessAssessment: Inventors and Business Owners Should Start Their IP Journey with this USPTO-NIST Tool
- Other Barks & Bites for Friday, January 22: Iancu and Peter Step Down from USPTO, CJEU Asked Whether Preliminary Injunction Standard Burdens Patent Owners, SCOTUS Denial Leaves Invalidation of Idenix Genus Patent Claims Untouched
- US Inventor Backs SCOTUS Petition to Clarify Claim Construction Principles
- Iancu Says Goodbye, Urges Commitment to ‘American Innovation Renaissance’
- Biden’s Opportunity to Protect American Innovation