Booking.com’s trademark battle goes to Supreme Court
Booking.com’s long-running battle to trademark its name will go to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected Booking.com’s trademark bid back in 2016 citing it was too generic a term.
After losing a subsequent appeal, Booking.com took its case to the federal court.
The company backed up its argument with customer survey evidence showing that 74.8% of consumers identified ‘Booking.com’ with the brand rather than a generic term.
The court sided with the company, saying the name is ‘distinctive’ enough thanks to the ‘.com’ domain name, to potentially get trademark protection.
The USPTO upheld its own ruling and petitioned the Supreme Court to review the decision.
Now the highest court in the country will review the case.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on it by mid-2020.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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