I’ll have to say, I really enjoyed Aaron Keller’s guest post from yesterday. In addition to the valuable insights he provided, it got me thinking about some perhaps unrelated, but parallel topics of likely interest to legal and marketing types. Aaron wrote about the importance of a brand being honest with itself and others. He expressed the need… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Genericide
Subscribe to Genericide RSS FeedWebinar: Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark & Legal Implications
Posted in Branding, Genericide, Guest Bloggers, Look-For Ads, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Product Configurations, Product Packaging, TrademarksLast week I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a ninety-minute webinar with my good friend, frequent and eloquent guest-blogger on DuetsBlog – Aaron Keller of Capsule – complete with some friendly banter on the following: "Hot Marketing Topics with Trademark and Legal Implications." Minnesota Continuing Legal Education has generously provided a link where the webinar can be viewed in its entirety, here. As you’ll… Continue Reading
Brilliant Trademark Advice or Baloney?
Posted in Almost Advice, Genericide, Marketing, TrademarksA few bits of trademark advice recently passed across my screen from The Marketing Blog: Turning Entrepreneurs Into Marketers – advice that I believe deserves some friendly comment and critique, leaving you to decide whether any of it rises to the level of brilliant trademark advice or sinks to the level of trademark baloney: "Trademark as you go. Don’t wait… Continue Reading
Artisan Puffery?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Genericide, Marketing, TrademarksThere once was a day when being an "artisan" meant something: "A person or company that makes a high-quality, distinctive product in small quantities, usually by hand using traditional methods: artisan foods." The key elements of an artisan’s handiwork seem to be hand-crafted, distinctive products of high-quality that are produced in small numbers. Perhaps bread from the… Continue Reading
When You Verb Your Trademark, You Know What?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Television, TrademarksWell, perhaps more than just about every trademark use guideline in existence, including those offered by the International Trademark Association (INTA) ("NEVER use a trademark as a verb"): (television commercial link on Youtube here) Maybe because you have been following the trademark verbing dialogue here on DuetsBlog and you have learned all about Managing The Legal Risk of… Continue Reading
Messin’ With Google
Posted in Advertising, Genericide, Law Suits, Marketing, Search Engines, Television, TrademarksWhat does Google have in common with Sasquatch? Well, perhaps one possible point of similarity is that if you mess with either, you might get yourself seriously messed up in the process. With respect to the defensive power of Sasquatch, a local Wisconsin business success story, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, has gotten much notoriety with its series of hilarious 30-second television… Continue Reading
A Legal Obligation to Enforce Trademark Rights?
Posted in Dilution, Fair Use, Famous Marks, Genericide, Infringement, Law Suits, Loss of Rights, TrademarksWhen trademark owners are accused of bullying and shamed in public, a common and knee-jerk defensive response to justify the cease and desist letter or enforcement action is: "We have a legal duty and obligation to police and enforce our trademark rights." And, some might even go on to say: "If we don’t enforce our mark against this use,… Continue Reading
Onesie of a Kind?
Posted in Genericide, Infringement, Law Suits, Loss of Rights, TrademarksI have been a parent for a little less than a year now, and I made a shocking discovery this week: ONESIES is a registered trademark. I found this out from a news article that Gerber Childrenswear is suing California Christiania Republic ("CCR") for infringement of of the ONESIES mark for CCR’s "one*Z" adult, er, onesie… Continue Reading
A Few Trademark Grammar School Facts
Posted in Copyrights, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Non-Traditional Trademarks, Product Configurations, Trademarks, TruncationAny recent graduate of trademark grammar school knows, at least, the following twenty facts (perhaps there is, at least, one opinion among them): A trademark identifies, distinguishes, and indicates the origin of goods; A trademark should be searched and cleared before adoption and first use; A trademark needs a trademark attorney to take a position on availability; A trademark… Continue Reading
Verbing the DirecTV Brand Name
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Marketing, Television, TrademarksYet another brand name and trademark being promoted as a verb in the tagline or signature at the end of each television commercial: "Don’t Just Watch TV. DirecTV." For more on the subject of trademark verbing and the risk of genericide: Just Verb It? A Legal Perspective on Using Brands As Verbs: Part I Just Verb… Continue Reading
Is the iPad Name Going Generic?
Posted in Branding, Famous Marks, Genericide, Guest Bloggers, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Search Engines, Trademarks—Mark Prus, Marketing Consultant at NameFlashSM Like many professional name developers, I opened 2010 by making fun of the Apple iPad name. Steve Jobs gave a strong case for naming the “tablet pc” in a way that was consistent with previous Apple naming conventions (iPod, iTunes, iPhone), but many of us poked fun at the… Continue Reading
How Realistic is the Risk of Trademark Genericide?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksThe Grand Marshal in the Parade of Horribles, at least for some trademark types, is the one who forbids any deviation from the absolute "rule" against using brand names and trademarks as nouns or verbs, a standard "rule" commonly found in trademark use guidelines (only permitting the use of trademarks as adjectives). As I have written about previously, these "rules"… Continue Reading
Get a Load of This: General Mills Takes Offense in Trademark Spat Over Spuds
Posted in Branding, Food, Genericide, Infringement, Law Suits, Marketing, TrademarksThey say that the best defense is a good offense. It appears that General Mills has adopted this strategy in a recent trademark dispute over the term LOADED in connection with instant potatoes. Just yesterday, the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal reported the filing of a federal district court lawsuit by General Mills against Idahoan Foods, in which… Continue Reading
Managing The Legal Risk of “Verbing Up” Brands and Trademarks
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Domain Names, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksTrademark lawyers need to face the facts. Despite decades of ardent counseling to the contrary, business executives and marketers are not only testing the waters with the treatment of their most valuable brands as verbs, in some cases, they are diving in head first, committing substantial resources and effort toward the clearly stated goal of "verbing up" and having their brands used as verbs by… Continue Reading
A Frisbee By Any Other Name?
Posted in Branding, Domain Names, Famous Marks, Genericide, Goodwill, Marketing, TrademarksIn reading news of the passing of Fred Morrison, inventor of the Frisbee Normal 0 0 1 2 1 1 2 11.1287 0 0 0 ®, I was surprised to learn that the Frisbee wasn’t always called "Frisbee." Morrison sold his rights to Wham-O in 1957 ("sold" being used loosely — he apparently earned more… Continue Reading
Another Marketing Pitfall: How to Crush a Smashing Brand Name & Trademark
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksLast week we blogged about the dreaded D-Word and how some marketers unwittingly undermine trademark rights in a brand name by explaining that the name "describes" or is "descriptive" of the goods or services sold under the brand. We also have blogged about the danger of "taking a suggestive name, mark, or tag-line, and using it descriptively in… Continue Reading
What a Crock, Pot That Is . . .
Posted in Branding, Genericide, Infringement, Keyword Ads, Law Suits, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksWe’re not talking the foamed footwear Crocs® that Randall Hull wrote about in his What a Croc! post from a couple of weeks ago. Instead, we’re talking slow cookers — on this snow-capped Valentine’s Day in the Twin Cities. Every once in a while a stroll down the grocery store aisle leaves me surprised when… Continue Reading
Dialing in on Trademark Abandonment?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Sight, SoapBox, TrademarksWhat do these photos have in common, besides the fact that they are both from Roadsidepictures‘ beautiful photostream collection posted on Flickr? Well, one might say, they both illustrate a form of abandonment, an abandoned building on the left, and apparently some abandoned intellectual property in the form of a clock logo and ’round the… Continue Reading
Kleenex® Not Wanting to Blow It: Some Steps to Avoid Trademark Genericide
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Famous Marks, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksThis sponsored banner ad is currently appearing in AdAge’s Daily News on-line newsletter: How many boxes of tissue do you suppose this ad is responsible for selling? If the answer is none, that is probably fine with Kimberly-Clark since the return on investment for this ad is measured quite differently, I’m sure, given how the frequently misused Kleenex®… Continue Reading
From Trademark to Tin God: Long Live the King?
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Food, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, Television, TrademarksA few years ago, the world was introduced to arguably the creepiest fast food mascot of all time: The King. For many of us, this introduction came courtesy of a frightening commercial suggesting that we "Wake Up With The King." Over the following years, TK expanded his popularity. He went from our bedrooms to our… Continue Reading
Genericide Watch: Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Slip ‘N Slide, and Super Ball
Posted in GenericideWham-O, Inc. has had its share of hits over the years, achieving "household name" status (my opinion) with an impressive list of trademarked (I am not afraid to use it as a verb) products: FRISBEE for "toy flying saucers for toss games" HULA HOOP for "plastic toy hoops" SUPER BALL for "sport and toy balls" SLIP ‘N SLIDE for a "flexible plastic water slide"… Continue Reading
When You Need To Enforce Your Trademark Rights, Forget It (Maybe)
Posted in Almost Advice, GenericideYellow Book USA, Inc. has embarked on a marketing campaign telling consumers to “Yellowbook It” when they need to search for something. Although Yellow Book USA, Inc. does not own a federal registration for YELLOWBOOK, its does use the ™ symbol behind the term on its Web site to signal to consumers that it is… Continue Reading
To Google Or Not To Google
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Search Engines, TrademarksFull disclosure…I own Google stock. I like their products and their potential. However, I am more than a bit concerned about how they use their names and trademarks. Microsoft® names its products in a traditional fashion. Microsoft is the company; names like Windows, Silverlight, Bing are clearly the products. A very logical naming architecture that makes it clear where… Continue Reading
Just Verb It? Part III: Testing the “Slippery Slope” of Using Brands as Verbs
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Genericide, Loss of Rights, Marketing, TrademarksAlthough intellectual property lawyers of the Dr. No variety may not like to admit it – I submit that, not all slippery slopes are created equal. While some slippery slope cautions might prevent a few bumps and bruises in traveling along a particular path (e.g., the one on the left below), I suspect far fewer slippery slope… Continue Reading









