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8  PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE v. BOOKING.COM B. V. 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

of Fire Chiefs, Inc., 782 F. 2d 987, 989–990 (CA Fed. 1986).
Consumers do not use the term “Wine, Incs.” to refer to pur-
veyors  of  wine.  Still,  the  term  “Wine,  Inc.”  is  generic  be-
cause it signifies only a company incorporated for that pur-
pose.  See  Goodyear,  128  U. S.,  at  602–603.  Similarly,
“Booking, Inc.” may not be trademarked because it signifies
only a booking company.  The result should be no different 
for “Booking.com,” which signifies only a booking website. 
More  than  that,  many  of  the  facts  that  the  Court  sup-
poses  may  distinguish  some  “generic.com”  marks  as  de-
scriptive and some as generic are unlikely to vary from case 
to case.  There will never be evidence that consumers liter-
ally  refer  to  the  relevant  class  of  online  merchants  as
“generic.coms.”    Nor  are  “generic.com”  terms  likely  to  ap-
pear in dictionaries.  And the key fact that, in the majority’s 
view, distinguishes this case from Goodyear—that only one
entity can own the rights to a particular domain name at a
time—is present in every “generic.com” case.  See ante, at 
9. 

What,  then,  stands  in  the  way  of  automatic  trademark 
eligibility  for  every  “generic.com”  domain?  Much  of  the 
time, that determination will turn primarily on survey evi-
dence, just as it did in this case.  See 915 F. 3d, at 183–184. 
However, survey evidence has limited probative value in 
this context.  Consumer surveys often test whether consum-
ers associate a term with a single source.  See 2 McCarthy
§12:14–12:16 (describing types of consumer surveys).  But 
it is possible for a generic term to achieve such an associa-
tion—either because that producer has enjoyed a period of
exclusivity in the marketplace, e.g., Kellogg Co. v. National 
Biscuit Co., 305 U. S. 111, 118–119 (1938), or because it has
invested money and effort in securing the public’s identifi-
cation, e.g., Abercrombie, 537 F. 2d, at 9.  Evidence of such 
an association, no matter how strong, does not negate the 
generic  nature  of  the  term.    Ibid.    For  that  reason,  some 
courts and the TTAB have concluded that survey evidence