Duff on Hospitality Law

The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued a Statement of Objections this Tuesday alleging that industry giants Booking.com, Expedia, Inc. and InterContinental Hotels Group violated the UK’s Competition Act of 1998. The Statement of Objections will not be made public, but from OFT’s comments, its rate parity and best rate guarantees that are causing the trouble.

Room Key, a brand new player in the on-line hospitality market, launched in beta on January 11, 2012 to some excitement and some hard questions. Room Key is a joint venture among six U.S.-based hotel chains—Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels*, InterContinental Hotels, Marriott International* and Wyndham Hotel Group—that allows users to search for available rooms at almost all of the chains’ global properties, or about 23,000 rooms total. More Kayak than Expedia, users search the Room Key site for inventory and are then redirected to the individual property (or chain’s) home site to complete booking. The idea is to drive traffic to the hotel websites and away from on-line travel agencies (OTAs) like Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity. And, of course, to provide a customized, personable hotel booking experience to the user--and who better to do that then a group of hoteliers--says CEO John Davis.

If you have a trademark that is registered with the United States Patent & Trademark Office before September 1, 2011, and you are not in the adult entertainment business, you should consider making a pre-emptive registration of the URL [your trademark].xxx now, to prevent someone who is in the adult entertainment industry from registering it later.

Fall is upon us and like every fall, there is no shortage of upcoming travel and tourism industry events to attend. Over the next few months, our team will be busy attending and speaking at a number of industry-related events.

Upcoming events include:

Lately, we’ve been hearing from a number of our clients and friends in the industry of a startling increase in the number of letters and emails alleging patent infringement. As hospitality- and restaurant-industry businesses become bigger and bigger users of patentable technology, we expect we may see many more of these claims. In an effort to provide a straightforward set of guidelines to our clients and friends, I went to my litigation partner, Tom Richardson, who happens to be defending a number of alleged patent infringement claims right now, and good friend and patent attorney, Charles Moore, and asked them for a streamlined checklist of how to handle receipt of such a letter or email. Tom brings over 35 years of litigation experience to a broad range of complex cases, including anti-trust and business torts; securities; trademark, copyright and patent disputes; complex commercial contract cases; and product liability and warranty claims and risk avoidance. Charles is a patent attorney with the Portland, OR intellectual property firm of Alleman Hall McCoy Russell & Tuttle, LLP, where he represents clients in a variety of patent matters, including helping them defend against patent troll claims, and preparing and prosecuting patent applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Charles also has over 13 years of in-house practice, most recently as Senior IP Counsel with Hewlett-Packard Company. Here are their suggestions:

A pair of recently effected state laws makes clear that information security remains a significant issue that receives and will continue to receive considerable legislative and commercial attention. Hoteliers, restaurateurs and others in the hospitality industry use personally identifiable information (PII) of their guests and customers to improve services and create a personalized experience.

Greg and I attended the annual Hospitality Law Conference in Houston this February, which devoted an entire track to data privacy issues. It’s the definition of a hot topic, and important, so please take note!