Supreme Court says generic domains like booking.com can be trademarked

Supreme Court says generic domains like booking.com can be trademarked

3 years ago
Anonymous $qOHwDUKgAF

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/supreme-court-says-generic-domains-like-booking-com-can-be-trademarked/

The US Patent and Trademark Office erred by finding the term booking.com was too generic for trademark protection, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

Trademark law prohibits anyone from registering generic terms that describe a class of products or services. Anyone can start a store company called "The Wine Company," but they can't use trademark law to stop others from using the same name. When the online travel giant Bookings Holdings sought to trademark its booking.com domain name almost a decade ago, the US Patent and Trademark Office concluded that the same rule applied.