Court TV interviewed Doug Isenberg about the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in a case involving trademark protection for the domain name <booking.com>.
As Doug explained in a blog post, the Court said that a domain name consisting of a generic word can be registered as a trademark if the domain name as a whole has obtained “acquired distinctiveness” or “secondary meaning” in the minds of the public.
In the Court TV interview, Doug said that, despite concerns expressed by some small businesses, the opinion is unlikely to significantly alter the playing field for companies on the Internet. Still, the opinion could lead to a growing number of U.S. trademark registrations for domain names that contain generic words.
Doug is one of the world’s most active and prominent domain name dispute attorneys, regularly helping clients protect their trademarks on the Internet against cybersquatters via the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and other legal tools. He was recognized as a “Leading Trademark Professional” in the 2020 edition of World Trademark Review 1000.
