GENERICIDE
Good advice Te International Trademark Association (INTA) has provided brand owners with some important advice to help them avoid falling victim to genericide. “Avoid all variations,” the association says.
“Variations on a trademark can signal to the consuming public that improper usage is okay. It is not prudent to allow spelling changes, abbreviations, plurals, or apostrophes with the trademark, or to combine it with other words or marks.” Another tip (like Google’s) is to enforce
correct grammatical use, with INTA saying “I need a Kleenex tissue” is correct, but “I need a Kleenex” is wrong. Further, it says, the generic name of a product should be used in association with the trademark (eg, “Apple computers”, “Xerox photocopies” and “Exxon gasoline”). “A successful example of warding off trademark genericide is the campaign conducted by Xerox to encourage users to refer to ‘photocopying’ documents, not ‘Xeroxing’ documents,” INTA adds. Campaigns such as Xerox’s are regarded as successful but, as Harvey says, the irony from a marketing standpoint is that a company oſten
trademarks that became generic*
5 Aspirin
Pina Colada Walkman Escalator Cellophane *Does not apply to
all jurisdictions
“fervently wants the public to consider its brand to identify the category in which its goods or services are sold”—but, if that happens, the mark is in danger of becoming generic. “Te other reality is that using the full trademark designation nomenclature in advertising can clutter up the message— something which marketers absolutely preach against. So, does the advert say: ‘Drive a Buick brand automobile’? or ‘Drive a Buick’?
“In such cases it seems the marketers will
always be at odds with the trademark lawyers,” he says. Trademark owners should clearly be vigilant
and prudent to protect their rights, but could a trademark killed off by genericide ever rise from the dead? “It is theoretically possible that a generic term
can be resuscitated as a trademark, but instances of its happening are extremely rare,” says Harvey.
20 World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2015
www.worldipreview.com
Elena Elisseeva /
Shutterstock.com
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