Trademark bullies

[Paul McFedries]

Sorry for this not-quite-on-topic message:

A few months ago, I sent out to my Word Spy list a word that many
publications -- including Consumer Electronics, The Boston Globe, Newsweek,
and The New York Times -- have been using as a generic term for the past
year or two. (For legal reasons, I'm being deliberately vague.)

A couple of days ago, someone from a company that uses the same word as
their corporate name wrote to me and said they had seen the word on my Web
site. He said  the word is a company name and is "not a term of art." He
asked me to "do us a favor and do not promote our name as a term of art."

I wrote him back and gave him the usual spiel about the nature of language
change and how some trademarks can also be used as generic terms. The same
principal applied here, I said, since I've seen the word used generically by
a number of different publications.

He responded by reiterating that the term is a trademark and closed by
saying "Again, I ask, and recommend, that you respect its status as a
trademark in your publications."

I'm not so dense that I don't see the implicit threat in this
recommendation. So I'm wondering what my options are here. I don't want to
cave in to this "trademark bully," but I don't want to be sued, either. I
believe all he wants is for me to include with my entry that the word is
also a registered trademark. I know dictionaries acknowledge trademarks, but
Word Spy isn't a dictionary; it's just a humble little record of the new
ways that people are using the language.

I know next to nothing about trademark law, so if anyone has any advice, or
can point me to a good source, I'd be very grateful.

Paul
http://www.wordspy.com/