Generic Trademarks

Registered trademark symbol

A generic trademark (AKA genericized trademark or proprietary eponym) is a trademark or brand name that becomes so popular that is has become either generic name for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service. This is not something that a trademark holder wants to happen. So, in this case, you can be too popular. The process of a product's name becoming genericized is known by the rather terrible term of genericide.

When this genericide occurs, its original owner loses some of their intellectual property. Examples of generic trademarks include: Thermos, Kleenex, ChapStick, Aspirin, Dumpster, Band-Aid, Velcro, Hoover, Jet Ski and Speedo. This process sometimes is limited to a particular country, though it can apply worldwide. (List of generic trademarks)

A recent case is Chooseco LLC, the publisher of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series, suing Netflix Inc., saying the streaming company’s recently released interactive film “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” used the series’ trademark without permission. As is always the case, the trademark owner claims that this use is besmirching the brand’s value.

The generic "teleprompter" is now used for the display device that prompts a person speaking with an electronic visual text like cue cards. It began as the product TelePrompTer (with that internal capitalization) back in the 1950s.

The Otis Elevator Company advertised that it offered "the latest in elevator and escalator design," and thereby used the generic term "elevator" along with Otis's trademark "Escalator" product of moving staircases in the same way. Later, the Trademark Office and the courts concluded that, if Otis used their trademark in that generic way, they could not stop Westinghouse from calling its moving staircases "escalators", and a valuable trademark was lost through genericization.

In America, aspirin is the generic name for the product sold by many companies. But it is still a Bayer trademark name for acetylsalicylic acid in about 80 countries, including Canada where you will find both generic "ASA tablets" and others carrying the Aspirin trademark because the trademark owned by Bayer is still recognized there.

Genericization typically occurs over a period of time because: 1) in which a mark is not used as a trademark (i.e., where it is not used to exclusively identify the products or services of a particular business) 2) where a mark falls into disuse entirely or 3) where the trademark owner does not enforce its rights through actions for passing off or trademark infringement.

Trademark owners may consider developing a generic term for the product to be used in descriptive contexts, to avoid inappropriate use of the "house" mark. Such a term is called a generic descriptor. Examples: "Kleenex tissues" ("facial tissues" being the generic descriptor) or "Velcro brand fasteners" for Velcro brand name hook-and-loop fasteners.

It is often difficult to stop genericide, though companies such as Johnson & Johnson's effort to protect their Band-Aid product not to be used with any similar product.

Google has tried to prevent the term 'googling' in reference to Web searches, but the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary have both noted the widespread use of the verb coinage and yet still defining "google" (all lower case) as a verb meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."

I recall examples of companies issuing lawsuits for one dollar to prevent the genericization of a core trademark. The Xerox corporation tried extensive public relations campaigns to push the use of "photocopy" as a verb, rather than the generic "xerox." They were successful, but part of that comes from the fact that there became so many other copier companies that the shorter "copy" is now the most common verb used.

You will find new examples in the news all the time. Adobe Systems doesn't want their trademarked product, Photoshop, used as "photoshopped" to mean a modified image.

Source: wikipedia.org

Blackberry (phones)

BlackBerry 8820, BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Classic - by Kt38138 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

BlackBerry is a line of smartphones, tablets, and services originally designed and marketed by Canadian company BlackBerry Limited (formerly known as Research In Motion, or RIM). It is a product name, though many people think it is the company's name.

Research in Motion first offered their Inter@ctive Pager 900 in 1996. It was a clamshell (flip) device that allowed two-way paging. Their first device to carry the BlackBerry name was the BlackBerry 850, an email pager, in January 1999 which integrated email.

A number of other names had been considered for that integrated model, including "LeapFrog" because the company considered the device to be "leaps and bounds" over everything else on the market. EasyMail, MegaMail and ProMail were also considered as well as "Strawberry" because the tiny keys resembled seeds. But when someone felt the word "straw" sounded slow and negative. The name BlackBerry was coined by the marketing company Lexicon Branding and BlackBerry with its internal second capital B name was chosen due to the resemblance of the keyboard's buttons to that of the drupelets that compose the blackberry fruit, as well as the popular device color of black.

President Obama famously fought to keep his BlackBerry phone and the product had a loyal following in its time. It picked up the nickname of "CrackBerry" because of its addictive nature.

Cassandra Complex

Cassandra by 

Evelyn De Morgan - Wikimedia

The Cassandra complex is the name given to a phenomenon where people who predict bad news or warnings are ignored or outright dismissed.

For our origin story, we go back to Greek mythology. Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, the king who reigned over Troy when the Greeks attacked it.

Cassandra was so beautiful that she attracted the attention of the god Apollo, the son of Zeus. He gave her the gift of prophecy, but she refused his attentions. This made Apollo angry and, like all those ancient gods, he took revenge. He cursed Cassandra so that even though she could make truthful prophecies, no one would ever believe her.

In the Old Testament, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Amos were all prophets who tried to warn people of what they saw as wrong in their society. But people didn’t believe them, and they ended up being punished for their prophecies.

The term "Cassandra complex" entered the lexicon in 1949 when a French philosopher discussed the potential for someone to predict future events. This complex has found its way into usage in psychology, the circus, the corporate world, environmentalism and philosophy.

Psychologists use the term "Cassandra complex" to apply to people who suffer feel humiliated because they are never being listened to or believed when they try and explain themselves to other people.