Reglikedomain industry desk

To court to try to get trademarks — Booking.com goes

To court to try to get trademarks — Booking.com goes

Booking.generic.

booking-yeahTravel site Booking.com has run into a wall trying to get trademarks related to its namesake, and it’s going to court to overturn U.S. Patent and Trademark office decisions.

The USPTO argues that Booking.com is merely descriptive of the travel services that the site offers, so it can’t be trademarked.

Booking.com filed suit (pdf) on Friday to try to get the USPTO to grant the trademarks.

Although we in the domain name industry promote the value of category-defining domain names, an obvious drawback is the challenge of getting trademarks.

Booking.com is well known in the domain name business for its odd booking.yeah advertising campaign that makes up a fictitious top level domain name. The firm also paid $2.2 million in an auction for rights to operate the .hotels top level domain name.

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