Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-46_8n59.pdf
Page Number: 11

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

because  adding  “Company”  “only  indicates  that  parties 
have formed an association or partnership to deal in such 
goods.”  Ibid.    Permitting  exclusive  rights  in  “Goodyear
Rubber Company” (or “Wine Company, Cotton Company, or 
Grain Company”), the Court explained, would tread on the 
right of all persons “to deal in such articles, and to publish
the fact to the world.”  Id., at 602–603. 

“Generic.com,” the PTO maintains, is like “Generic Com-
pany” and is therefore ineligible for trademark protection, 
let alone federal registration.  According to the PTO, adding
“.com” to a generic term—like adding “Company”—“conveys
no  additional  meaning  that  would  distinguish  [one  pro-
vider’s]  services  from  those  of  other  providers.”    Brief  for 
Petitioners 44.  The dissent endorses that proposition: “Ge-
neric.com”  conveys  that  the  generic  good  or  service  is  of-
fered online “and nothing more.”  Post, at 1. 

That premise is faulty.  A “generic.com” term might also 
convey to consumers a source-identifying characteristic: an 
association with a particular website.  As the PTO and the 
dissent elsewhere acknowledge, only one entity can occupy 
a particular Internet domain name at a time, so “[a] con-
sumer who is familiar with that aspect of the domain-name
system can infer that BOOKING.COM refers to some spe-
cific entity.”  Brief for Petitioners 40.  See also Tr. of Oral 
Arg. 5 (“Because domain names are one of a kind, a signifi-
cant portion of the public will always understand a generic 
‘.com’ term to refer to a specific business . . . .”); post, at 7 
(the  “exclusivity”  of  “generic.com”  terms  sets  them  apart 
from  terms  like  “Wine,  Inc.”  and  “The  Wine  Company”).
Thus,  consumers  could  understand  a  given  “generic.com” 
term to describe the corresponding website or to identify 
the website’s proprietor.  We therefore resist the PTO’s 
position that “generic.com” terms are capable of signifying 
only an entire class of online goods or services and, hence,