\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>n one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland \u2013 a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast \u2013 that was created to help secure the future of the rock\u2019s much-loved arts festival, b-side.<\/p>\n On the other is Airbnb, the San Francisco-based booking colossus. The battle between them is over the three little letters they share.<\/p>\n <\/span>bnb-side, a six-room B&B on the Isle of Portland, has received legal letters from booking titan Airbnb.<\/span> Photograph: Pete Millson<\/p>\n b-side says the \u201cbnb\u201d in bnb-side means what it has always meant: bed and breakfast. But lawyers for the Silicon Valley titan say the name of the guesthouse, perched on an outcrop just 4 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, threatens the global brand of the $100bn heavyweight.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought the name was both really obvious and really cool,\u201d said Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side. \u201cb-side was founded almost 20 years ago, so when we set up our BnB in 2024 to raise money for the festival, we just popped the \u2018bn\u2019 in front because it\u2019s a universally recognised description of what we\u2019re offering.\u201d<\/p>\n Airbnb doesn\u2019t agree. In May, it sent the first of three legal letters to the tiny social enterprise to demand it cease its attempt to register the B&B using the name it had used since it opened its doors.<\/p>\n \u201cThey won\u2019t let us compromise by using a different case, an ampersand or an \u2018and\u2019,\u201d said Holly-Nambi. \u201cAccording to Airbnb, we can\u2019t describe our BnB as a BnB at all.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>A creative retreat held at bnb-side \u2013 the social enterprise was set up in 2024 to raise money for the b-side festival.<\/span> Photograph: Handout<\/p>\n For bnb-side, losing the argument could mean more than abandoning a clever name. It would mean replacing signage and rewriting websites, social media and all other material referencing and advertising the B&B.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not just a huge waste of money \u2013 of which we don\u2019t have much \u2013 and of the equally valuable time of our volunteers, but it would throw b-side\u2019s core income stream into chaos,\u201d said Holly-Nambi. \u201cWe\u2019d have to painstakingly build our reputation and brand back up from scratch all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n Raina Summerson, chair of b-side, is fuming and incredulous. \u201cWe opened bnb-side because we were completely dependent on public funding and wanted to be more financially secure,\u201d she said. \u201cbnb-side now generates almost half the festival\u2019s annual \u00a3250,000 turnover. If it loses its name, we risk having to establish it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n Airbnb has opposed the name on three separate legal grounds: that consumers will confuse the two brands, that bnb-side could benefit from or damage Airbnb\u2019s reputation, and that bnb-side will financially profit by misrepresenting itself as an official Airbnb service.<\/p>\n b-side is asking the Intellectual Property Office to reject Airbnb\u2019s opposition in full, with costs awarded in their favour. The case is still under way, with no ruling having yet been made.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018It\u2019s pretty bitter,\u2019 said Cat Wightman, pictured at bnb-side, describing the legal battle with Airbnb, a company that has \u2018conquered\u2019 Portland.<\/span> Photograph: Handout: bnb-side, Portland<\/p>\n Airbnb\u2019s claim has hit a nerve on the proud, windswept outcrop. Cat Wightman, manager of bnb-side, said: \u201cIt\u2019s pretty bitter. We\u2019ve watched other small, local hospitality businesses go under, and local people unable to afford homes here, who have been negatively affected by the force with which the Airbnb market has conquered Portland. One person owns eight properties on the island, all of which are rented out on Airbnb.\u201d<\/p>\n b-side obtained pro bono advice and is working with the law firm Stevens Hewlett & Perkins to defend them, but the process is still intimidating. \u201cIt\u2019s terrifying but we\u2019re not going to back down,\u201d said Holly-Nambi. \u201cWe do things differently here in Portland.\u201d<\/p>\n Craig Beaumont, a trademark attorney and senior associate at Barker Brettell, a law firm that specialises in intellectual property, said that for all Airbnb\u2019s might, this would not be an easy or straightforward win for them.<\/p>\n \u201cThis feels like an uphill battle they\u2019re embarking on,\u201d he said. \u201cBnB has long been widely understood as shorthand for a descriptive phrase, and descriptive phrases are available for the public to use.\u201d<\/p>\n bnb-side are not the only company who agree with Beaumont: Companies House records show that in the past decade 14 accommodation companies with \u201cbnb\u201d in their name successfully registered their businesses.<\/p>\n <\/span>The Airbnb logo on display at its San Francisco HQ \u2013 the colossus may be facing an \u2018uphill battle\u2019 as it seeks to stake a claim to the letters \u2018bnb\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Gabrielle Lurie\/Reuters<\/p>\n Darren Meale, a partner and trademark litigation specialist at Simmons & Simmons, said it was no surprise the term was used so often. \u201cIt\u2019s quite punchy of Airbnb to say they\u2019re so well-known that they can monopolise a term that they only incorporated into their name in the first place because it was a descriptive one that everyone immediately understood, and then say that someone else using the term is going to confuse customers and damage them.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee Curtis, a partner and chartered trademark attorney at IP law firm HGF, agreed that Airbnb \u201cmay be testing the limits\u201d of the law. But he pointed to another risk for the lodging colossus.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a public relations angle to take into account,\u201d he said. \u201cSome companies may welcome getting a reputation for aggressive enforcement but that can backfire when the target is a community organisation, like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n Airbnb has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In one corner is bnb-side, a six-room bed and breakfast on the Isle of Portland \u2013 a tiny wedge of limestone tied by a narrow ribbon of shingle to the Dorset coast \u2013 that was created to help secure the future of the rock\u2019s much-loved arts festival, b-side. On the other is Airbnb, the San<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[15733,25305,1532,25307,324,2633,25306,8053,3445,1269],"class_list":{"0":"post-52231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-airbnb","9":"tag-airbnbs","10":"tag-bid","11":"tag-bnb","12":"tag-legal","13":"tag-letters","14":"tag-monopolise","15":"tag-portland","16":"tag-stands","17":"tag-tiny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}