Brand names

[Page Stephens]

Some of you may also remember the fight that Xerox put up some years ago in
order to keep people from xeroxing anything at all but to make copies by the
use of a Xerox (tm) machine.

Coca Cola lost the battle to their right to use the word "cola" as a
proprietary word many years ago. This explains their use of (tm) after the
word "Coke" in their ads. In Canada, btw, unless I am incorrect the word
"aspirin" is still registered as a trade mark to Bayer.

A few years ago Budweiser tried to keep florists from using the phrase,
"This bud's for you" in their advertisements.

Page Stephens

----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: Brand names


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Brand names
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> In a message dated 4/25/2003 12:52:01 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> pkurtz at HEIDELBERG.EDU writes:
>
> > the increase (or decrease) in use of brand names for
> > every day items in speech (such as "Jeep" for an SUV)?  I have students
> > doing a
> > project on this who are having trouble finding information.
> >
>
> try the magazine "Advertising Age"
>
> the legal-minded might want to delve in court cases in which a company
tries
> to protect its trademark from being ruled generic, as happened to
"Aspirin"
>
>                    James A. Landau