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Paramount probably felt that they HAD to do it to protect their trademarks. In the US, if someone violates your trademark and you fail to take action, a third party can use that as evidence that the term has entered the language as an everyday expression. That happened to trademarked names like "aspirin", which is no longer a trademark in the US, because the courts ruled that the trademark holder had failed to take action to protect it from unauthorised use.
I would imagine that, at the time, the various trademarks associated with Star Trek were an extremely valuable commodity.
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