Booking.com Case Makes History

Today we're going to talk about a Supreme Court argument. The first one ever heard by telephone in the entire history of the United States Supreme Court. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court heard arguments on May 4th, 2020, in the case of the United States Patent and Trademark Office versus Booking.com. Booking.com says that the term Booking.com should not be considered generic. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, relying on a case from 1888, called Goodyear's India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company versus the Goodyear Rubber Company. In 1888, the Supreme Court found that adding the word company to a name did not make that name unique and the name company, something generic, plus the word company left the mark generic. Booking.com is arguing that the addition of the.com or.org or something like that to the word booking in this case makes the term registrable at the USPTO. The Supreme Court Justices asked questions in terms of seniority, starting with the Chief Justice, who then acted as a panel moderator for the rest of the justices. Obviously after oral argument at the Supreme Court, the Court takes some time to consider the arguments of both sides and then issue a written opinion. There may be some telegraphing of that opinion based on the questions asked. The government was questioned about why the Supreme Court should rely on an 1888 Supreme Court opinion as opposed to the plain language of the Lanham Act statute on which this case is based. And Booking.com was asked why it needed to have Booking.com, why it was valuable as a trademark when just having the domain Booking.com itself seemed to be quite valuable and in fact many people would go online to Booking.com not knowing that it was the company itself, but just trying to book something.