Dutch company Booking.com is at the centre of one of the world's most important domain name-related legal cases. The US Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO) has taken its long-running dispute with Booking.com to the US Supreme Court, claiming that the word 'booking' is too generic to be registered as a trademark. Addition of the '.com' suffix is not sufficient to make a generic term registerable, the USPTO argues.
It's a case with major implications for many internet-based operations, because consumers often firmly associate generic-term-plus-extension combinations with particular companies, as with bol.com, amazon.com and nu.nl.
... What are the implications of the case? If the USPTO's appeal is rejected by the Supreme Court, Booking.com will be able to protect its brand more effectively. The company will be able to take action against anyone else that uses its name, on the grounds of trademark infringement, for example. And that could have repercussions for all the travel sites that use the word 'booking'.
read more (sidn)
It's a case with major implications for many internet-based operations, because consumers often firmly associate generic-term-plus-extension combinations with particular companies, as with bol.com, amazon.com and nu.nl.
... What are the implications of the case? If the USPTO's appeal is rejected by the Supreme Court, Booking.com will be able to protect its brand more effectively. The company will be able to take action against anyone else that uses its name, on the grounds of trademark infringement, for example. And that could have repercussions for all the travel sites that use the word 'booking'.
read more (sidn)