Quote:
Originally Posted by MGlitch
Pwalker seemed to assert that the common use of Coke to mean soda/pop/soft drink implied CocaCola was unable to pursue those individuals because the trademark protections had lapsed.
I was just pointing out that companies are generally wiser than to try to enforce usage when there's no explicit attempt to exploit a brand name for another product. And that the lack of them doing so shouldn't be taken as a sign of anything except a smart PR department that corporate actually listens to. Since, as noted, trying to pursue those cases would be a PR nightmare and wouldn't gain them any profit.
|
Actually, trademarks have to be defended, or they may be considered abandoned.
https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/t...nded-9813.html "Kleenex" is mentioned in the article.
Here's another article on the subject:
https://www.inc.com/guides/201101/ho...ringement.html
Quote:
Many aspiring entrepreneurs dream of turning their brand into a household word. But watch what you wish for—if your trademark becomes the generic word for a kind of product, you could lose your ownership of it.
That was the fate of words like "escalator" (originally a trademark of Otis Elevator Co.), "zipper" (B.F. Goodrich), "aspirin," and even "heroin" (both Bayer AG). Today companies like Kleenex and Xerox struggle to avoid such a fate through marketing campaigns aimed at reminding the public that they are a brand, not a product category.
"The company most notorious for making sure you don't genericize their mark is Xerox, which insists that people use a Xerox copy machine, they don't 'make a Xerox,'" says Albert.
|
Shari