Genericized_trademark Genericized_trademark

Genericized trademark - Definition

Genericized trademarks or genericised trademarks are former brand names, once legally protected as trademarks, which have since come to signify a generic product regardless of its manufacturer.

Contents
1 Legal Protection

1.1 European Union
1.2 Disclaimer

2 Former trademarks now used generically
3 Current trademarks that are often used generically

3.1 Medical genericized trademarks

4 Genericized trademarks (non-English)

4.1 Finnish
4.2 French
4.3 German
4.4 Hebrew
4.5 Indian
4.6 Romanian
4.7 Swiss German
4.8 Turkish

5 Non-trademarks
6 See also
7 External links

Legal Protection

Trademarks, unlike other forms of intellectual property such as copyrights and patents, must be actively used and defended. A copyright or patent holder may (in some cases) simply "sit on" his creation and prevent its use by others, but a trademark owner claiming and even registering a trademark that fails to make active use of it, or fails to defend it against infringement may lose the exclusive right to use it. Further, if a court rules that a formerly trademarked term has become so successful in gaining mind share and becomes "generic" through common use (and so the average consumer doesn't realize it is a trademark), it may also be ruled unprotectable.

The genericization of a trademark sometimes results because the trademark is the name of something protected by other intellectual property rights, especially patents. Since the patent gives an inventor the exclusive right to manufacture a product for a period of time, consumers will only know that product by the inventor's trademark for the duration of the patent. When the patent expires, the inventor's competitors begin producing their own versions, but using the inventor's trademark to name their product because this is the name by which the general public identifies such items. (This is also the rationale for not protecting a generic trademark, because that would effectively allow the inventor to extend patent protection indefinitely.) One patent that lost its trademark status in this way is Thomas Edison's mimeograph.

Trademark owners should never use the trademark as a verb or noun, implying the word is generic. Likewise, using the trademark as a plural or possessive (i.e. a noun) will imply the trademark is generic (unless the mark itself is possessive or plural, e.g., "Friendly's" restraurants). If the trademark is associated with a patent, the patent holder may need to emphasize a descriptive term for the product that is distinguished from the trademark as a brand name.

Trademark owners whose trademark is commonly used by consumers may have to take special proactive measures. Xerox took out ads advising consumers to "photocopy" instead of "Xeroxing" documents. In a less drastic but more common practice, many owners follow their trademark with the word "brand" to help define the word as a trademark. Johnson & Johnson changed the lyrics of their BAND-AID television commercial jingle from, "I am stuck on BAND-AIDs, 'cause BAND-AID's stuck on me" to "I am stuck on BAND-AID brand, 'cause BAND-AID's stuck on me."

European Union

Beginning in 2003 the European Union has sought to restrict the use of region names as trademarks for speciality food and drink to manufacturers from the region. Extending these restrictions outside Europe is controversial because regional names that are trademarks within Europe are often considered generic in other countries. It is made even more difficult where regional names have been trademarked outside Europe, such as Parma ham, which is trademarked in Canada by a Canadian manufacturer, preventing manufacturers from Parma in Italy from using their own name. Other products affected include Champagne, Bordeaux and many other wine names, Roquefort, Parmesan and Feta cheese, and Scotch whisky. In the 1990s the Parma consortium successfully sued the Asda supermarket chain to prevent it using the description Parma ham on prosciutto produced in Parma but sliced outside the region. See Protected Designation of Origin.

Disclaimer

Please note that in no event should the appearance on this page of a trademarked (or formerly trademarked) name be construed as affecting any trademark rights a holder might posess in such a name; this page is intended to illustrate the problem rights holders face and have faced through history in protecting their marks, not to contribute to said problem. This page should not be considered authoritative with respect to whether a name is still legally trademarked in any particular jurisdiction.

Former trademarks now used generically

Current trademarks that are often used generically

(This is necessarily a "subjective" list.)

Medical genericized trademarks

Please note, that the reason why in the United States and in the United Kingdom has different trademarks is because many American drug products haven't entered the UK until quite recently i.e. Advil instead of Nurofen. However many drugs have become international like Viagra.

  • Advil – Ibuprofen (USA)
  • BAND-AID - self adhesive bandage (has slang usages like "a band-aid solution"; was also the name of a charity group of musicians that produced a benefit song in the 1980s)
  • Benadryl - antihistamine tablets or liquid (Britain)
  • Elastoplast - self adhesive bandage (Britain)
  • Lemsip - lemon-flavoured cold & flu powder (Britain)
  • Nicorette - smoking gum (Britain)
  • Nurofen - Ibuprofen (Britain)
  • Rennie – Indigestion tablets
  • Solpadeine – Co-codamol (Britain)
  • Viagra - (TM 1998) drugs to enhance or prolong sexual performance

Genericized trademarks (non-English)

Finnish

  • alko - wine merchant (off-licence), see Alko
  • kännykkä - mobile phone, originally a trademark of Nokia, now widespead as the slang word for a mobile
  • kossu - vodka, slang for Koskenkorva, the most popular vodka in Finland
  • otto - ATM (a joint venture of Nordea, Osuuspankki & Sampo)
  • salmiakki - sal ammoniac covered licorice, owned by Fazer

French

  • Bic - a disposable ball-point pen
  • Minitel - the telephone viewdata service or the machines that run the service operated by France Telecom.
  • mobylette (mob) - moped
  • Scotch - transparent adhesive tape

German

  • Tesafilm - transparent adhesive tape (Tesa is the trademark in this word)
  • Nutella - hazelnut chocolate spread (ex-East Germans sometimes use the name of the East German version, Nudossi)
  • Tempo - paper tissues

Hebrew

Indian

  • Godrej - steel cupboard. Named after the multi-product business house of India that once was synonymous with steel cupboards
  • Bajaj - auto rickshaws, synonymous with Scooters and Auto-rickshaws besides other famous products
  • Dalda - hydrogenated vegetable fat, comes from the manufacturer of the Vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable fat). A member of the business family, HLL (Hindustan Lever Limited)

Romanian

Swiss German

  • Natel - mobile phone (the name that the incumbent operator Swisscom, gave its mobile network from the full name of this, Nationales Autotelefon)

Turkish

  • cemse - pronounced approximately "jam-say" comes from GMC, used for a kind of truck and military carrier
  • Selpak - tissue

Non-trademarks

Some words are popularly believed to be trademarks, or to have begun as trademarks, when this is not really the case:

See also

External links

Example Usage of Genericized
anthonycloskey: @jinscho The Tidy Cat bucket is so multi-purpose it's becomeing a Genericized trademark in itself.
renezamore: @mattbramanti The word teleprompter, with no capitalization, had become a Genericized trademark, because...http://bit.ly/k7sUN #thxwikipedia
TarheelPhilly: @MUTHAKNOWS Mainly b/c thr is NO BIG BUCKS in a cure -- once the **cure** is found it cn then B Genericized & wal-martized NO $$
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