United States PTO v. Booking.com B.V.

140 S. Ct. 2298 (2020)

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United States PTO v. Booking.com B.V.

United States Supreme Court
140 S. Ct. 2298 (2020)

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Facts

Booking.com B.V. (plaintiff), a travel-reservation website, submitted an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) (defendant) to register its domain name, booking.com, as a trademark. However, the PTO denied the application, finding that booking.com was a generic name and thus ineligible for registration as a trademark. Booking.com challenged the PTO’s finding, and the district held that booking.com was not generic because consumers primarily understood that the name signified a specific travel-reservation service as opposed to the general group of travel-reservation services. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. The PTO appealed, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Ginsburg, J.)

Dissent (Breyer, J.)

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