Supreme Court says generic domains like booking[dot]com can be trademarked
The US Patent and Trademark Office erred by finding the term booking.com was too generic for trademark protection, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
Trademark law prohibits anyone from registering generic terms that describe a class of products or services. Anyone can start a store company called "The Wine Company," but they can't use trademark law to stop others from using the same name. When the online travel giant Bookings Holdings sought to trademark its booking.com domain name almost a decade ago, the US Patent and Trademark Office concluded that the same rule applied.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/supreme-court-says-generic-domains-like-booking-com-can-be-trademarked/
#trademark #law
The US Patent and Trademark Office erred by finding the term booking.com was too generic for trademark protection, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
Trademark law prohibits anyone from registering generic terms that describe a class of products or services. Anyone can start a store company called "The Wine Company," but they can't use trademark law to stop others from using the same name. When the online travel giant Bookings Holdings sought to trademark its booking.com domain name almost a decade ago, the US Patent and Trademark Office concluded that the same rule applied.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/supreme-court-says-generic-domains-like-booking-com-can-be-trademarked/
#trademark #law
How Mexico's New Copyright Law Crushes Free Expression
When Mexico's Congress rushed through a new copyright law as part of its adoption of Donald Trump's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), it largely copy-pasted the US copyright statute, with some modifications that made the law even worse for human rights.
The result is a legal regime that has all the deficits of the US system, and some new defects that are strictly hecho en Mexico, to the great detriment of the free expression rights of the Mexican people.
Mexico's Constitution has admirable, far-reaching protections for the free expression rights of its people. Mexico’s Congress is not merely prohibited from censoring its peoples' speech -- it is also banned from making laws that would cause others to censor Mexicans' speech.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/how-mexicos-new-copyright-law-crushes-free-expression
#us #mexico #copyright #law
When Mexico's Congress rushed through a new copyright law as part of its adoption of Donald Trump's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), it largely copy-pasted the US copyright statute, with some modifications that made the law even worse for human rights.
The result is a legal regime that has all the deficits of the US system, and some new defects that are strictly hecho en Mexico, to the great detriment of the free expression rights of the Mexican people.
Mexico's Constitution has admirable, far-reaching protections for the free expression rights of its people. Mexico’s Congress is not merely prohibited from censoring its peoples' speech -- it is also banned from making laws that would cause others to censor Mexicans' speech.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/how-mexicos-new-copyright-law-crushes-free-expression
#us #mexico #copyright #law