A trademark provides the exclusive rights to the brand to use it only to refer to their products. Trademarks are valuable assets for a business that help people uniquely recognize a brand and its products and services. A trademark name should be distinctive in order to avoid confusion with the other brands producing similar goods. Nowadays, some brands are losing their trademark value because of genericization. Despite referring to a specific brand’s products alone, some trademarks are now being used to refer to similar products of other brands. Let us learn more about generic trademarks and what are the best practices to follow to avoid genericization.

Well-known Trademarks that are Genericized over the years

Once a trademark has become generic, it will not be registered anymore and the trademark owner loses his exclusive rights over the trademark. Let us look at some of the well-known trademarks that are genericized over the years.

The term “Escalator” is a trademark of Otis Elevator Company (a brand producing moving staircases) till 1950. Nowadays, it has become a common term to refer to moving staircases of any brand.

The word “Sellotape” is a trademark for a brand that produces cellulose-based adhesive tapes in the UK. Since this term is widely used in many countries, it has become genericized and now refers to adhesive tapes from any brand.

Likewise, the popularly used term “Aspirin” was also a trademark name for acetylsalicylic acid. However, now it is used as a generic term in the US.

Similarly, there are many trademarks such as ChapStick, Maggie, Xerox, Coke, Frisbee, Google, etc., that are now being genericized and are used as common terms instead of trademarks that refer to a specific brand.

Is there any way to prevent genericization? Read on to learn about how to prevent genericization.

Best Practices to Prevent Genericization

There are some of the best practices you can follow to avoid genericization. They are:

  1. Never use your trademark as a verb. For example, the terms “Xerox” and “Google” are trademarks, so don’t say “Xeroxing” or “Googling”. Using a trademark as a verb will turn into a generic term faster.
  2. Never use your trademark names as nouns, especially in plural forms. For example, say “Oreo cookies” and not “Oreos”, and say “Lays chips” and not “Lays”.
  3. Always use your trademark as registered and use the appropriate trademark symbol along with it.
  4. Never use a trademark in the possessive unless it is registered like that like McDonald’s.
  5. Use distinctive names for your trademarks, so that people will easily identify it as a brand rather than a common term referring to products of all brands.

Seeking help for Intellectual Property protection? Contact us right now!

We all know the worth of our intellectual properties and they need to be protected to preserve their value forever. If you are someone looking for guidance in trademark registration processes, contact Brealant! Our attorneys will solve all your queries related to Intellectual Property protection and assist you throughout the process of registration.