Courthouse Steps Oral Argument Teleforum: United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com

It has long been a staple of trademark law that one cannot receive a registered trademark for a generic term - for instance a trademark for "socks" would be useless because it indicates the type of goods being sold, not the source of those goods. This doctrine has been generally applied to generic terms with a top level domain appended - so socks.com would be equally generic and not capable of being registered for federal trademark protection. However, this is being challenged by the website booking.com, which offers travel booking services. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected their trademark application for "booking.com," saying it is generic, but the District Court reversed, finding "booking.com" descriptive, not generic, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed. This question now finds itself before the Supreme Court, to determine whether a domain name that is a generic term plus a top level domain can be validly registered for trademark protection.

Featuring:
-- Mr. Arthur Gollwitzer, III, Partner, Michael, Best & Friedrich LLP
-- Mr. Zvi S. Rosen, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University School of Law