High Court Booking.com Case Highlights Stale TM Test

Aside from a little static, Monday's oral arguments in the US Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com BV case went off without a hitch — the first telephonic argument before the US Supreme Court, necessitated in this age of COVID-19.

Novelty was not limited to the telephonic appearance of the court and parties: The legal issue presented itself required the court to square old-fashioned statutory text and case law with the modern, plugged-in world.

Earlier Proceedings

The central question in the case was whether adding ".com" to an otherwise generic term somehow transforms that term into a trademark. In particular, at issue was the registrability of "Booking.com," the domain name that points to Booking.com's popular internet reservation website.