I think this is one of those weird cases where they have to tell you the opposite of what they actually want, for legal reasons.
I think VELCRO(r) actually DOES want everybody to use their name the way it is commonly used - it's good for brand recognition.
But legally, retaining control of their brand requires them to clearly defend it from such generic use. This post is an example of that. If someone is using their brand in a way they don't want (like on a product not made by them), they can win a trademark case in court by pointing to posts like this.
Ding ding ding. They even throw their lawyers under the bus, saying that they are discouraging use of the term Velcro for the purpose of legal defense of their valuable Velcro trademark. Did this gain any real traction at any point?
I think it's a North American thing to call anything LEGO "Legos", denoting that it is a thing made up of many pieces of "Lego" right? In Europe if you pointed to a LEGO set or a pile of LEGO pieces every response you'd get would be "that's LEGO". But then again in Europe, or at least in Germany, we had many different brands to choose from for the same kind of construction play, whereas in North America it seemed like it's just LEGO.
There's a middle ground between not having enough brand recognition and losing control over your trademark to the point where it becomes generic.
Defending and suing helps keep it in the middle ground, but they're not going to sue Pat on the street for misusing the word -- which is where generic comes from, right?
Related, Google wrote a blog post[1] on a similar topic in 2006. As far as I know they've successfully avoided genericide and a 2017 lawsuit[2] ended with a ruling in their favor.
Also, unsurprisingly, Adobe has a whole section in their trademarks page about photoshopping[3]:
> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
This makes me laugh every time I read it. Surely, even the lawyers at Adobe are fully aware that literally nobody is going to use that mouthful of a term (complete with ®s, even).
I always wonder why they didn't come up with a replacement that would actually have a chance.
> This makes me laugh every time I read it. Surely, even the lawyers at Adobe are fully aware that literally nobody is going to use that mouthful of a term (complete with ®s, even).
I guarantee you marketing teams at Adobe will use that term.
Because they don't care whether people actually do it, nor is it realistic that they would. I'm sure the person who wrote that "correct" option made it that silly on purpose and laughed on pushing Publish.
> plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence in this case to support a jury finding that the relevant public primarily understands the word "google" as a generic name for internet search engines and not as a mark identifying the Google search engine in particular.
I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used. My lived experience has me telling people that I googled something despite my default search engine being DDG on all of my devices. One can’t really present the myriad spoken conversations which include this use as evidence in court, so what would they do?
Slightly aside: the “correct” examples that are given are always amusing but there’s something about Adobe’s double copyright symbol that hits me harder. That is too funny, not least because they’re 100% serious-face about it.
I think in Google's favor, their service is so utterly dominant[0] as a search engine that when someone asks you to google something they have a high expectation that it will be done on Google. As opposed to someone asking you to hoover up a mess but they don't really form an internal model of which vacuum cleaner you'll use, or asking to "borrow" a kleenex with no concern as to which brand of tissue you give them.
So even though you personally use DDG, surely there are still vastly more searches on Google than on all other search engines combined so there's no immediate danger of dilution.
I do have a question though for people familiar with trademark law. Why can't they just do away with the trademark dilution rule? So what if I want to go "rollerblading" on pair of K2s [1]? Why should Rollerblade be at risk of losing their trademark? Who is being served by this rule? It just seems to incentivize litigious behavior.
> I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used.
IANAL, but perhaps the dividing line isn't whether or not the term is commonly used as a generic one, but whether people are not generally aware that it's a brand name. I wasn't aware that "Velcro" was a brand name for a long time, for instance.
I think the majority of people using "google" generically are also fully aware that "Google" is a brand name.
So the evidence would be some sort of study showing that people think it's really generic?
Be careful what you wish for. I've noticed that young people, who have to use Bing and Ecosia at school (or go straight to TikTok and rarely use search engines) no longer use Google as a verb. They say "search it up" instead of "Google it". Google (the word) is going from generic to specific/proprietary again.
I think it's an inflection thing. You unnaturally emphasize the word, pause a bit, and try to fight back conveying incredulousness with your facial expression.
Silly-but-true answer: When I'm reading stuff like that aloud and wish to both be silly and make a point, I just read it as "registeredtrademark", very fast.
Serious answer: You don't. You just leave it out in speech.
« Velcro » is just roughly short for “hook (and) loop” in French (Velour et crochet — velvet and hook). So why not use the abbreviation? Trademarking it is like trademarking any common word, like Windows.
Actually I do have some sympathy; from working at Xerox I somehow was convinced to say “photocopy” (not that anyone uses either expression any more). And I always say “web search” because I don’t want to endorse or encourage the use of google.
"Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.
They are desperately trying to make it _not_ the abbreviation this comment claims it to be. Quite like "kleenex" in that way.
Normal people generally shouldn't care what the company's legal team wants or thinks--this campaign certainly doesn't stop me from using the term generically--but if the company defends its trademark in this way, it can extend the time _other_ _companies_ can use it as a generic description of what it does.
> Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.
You're arguing against a claim I didn't make. I simply said it's an abbreviation for a French phrase (the inventor was a French speaking swiss). Contractions of this sort are more common in French than straight acronyms, which tend to be more common in English. I didn't say it was some pre-existing word.
Hulu, the video streaming company, doesn't do much in the textiles/garmeny industry, and would have little trademark claim to the name used in a different industry.
I say bing it just to go against the grain. There was a time when people thought twice upon hearing it but now most people inherently understand the phrase which is mildly amusing.
Genericide is the funniest myth copyright enforcement agencies ever invented. Common use has not "genericided" anything after the 50s except for intentionally litigious naming ("flip phone") or things comprised of hypergeneric terms like videotape. Kleenex and Hoover have not lost their trademarks despite widespread generic use by millions.
I mean in most cases where a term becomes "generic" it has been long time generic before at some point someone bothers to make a study/lawsuit which declares it as generic as result.
For example pretty much everyone I know uses Lego as a generic term and knows about not Lego produced bricks. Currently Lego still managed to defend the trademark but IMHO it's just a matter of time until it becomes generic because it already defacto is and the only reason they still avoid it becoming generic is protectionism.
Maybe. It’s an uphill battle, but if they start now at least they’ll be generating evidence in their favor for the inevitable trials to come. But it may be too late. Most companies that have done this successfully have started a bit earlier.
Yes. Xerox is one example of a company that succeeded with their marketing campaign in a lot of the world. I understand that in Australia one used to xerox documents, but now you certainly photocopy them. In India they still xerox documents.
Funnily enough, even though vel-cro is a combination of two words in French (velour crochet), most people in France call it just "scratch" (as per the sound it makes).
Reminds me of the dark ages, when Xerox was so dominant in the copier market that people used their brand as a noun and a verb. They were threatened with loss of their trademark, because it had become so generic. So they had a massive publicity campaign, asking people to say "copy" instead of "xerox".
Is this a uniquely US thing? In the UK, people always say "hoover" instead of "vacuum".
Frigidaire and its abbreviated form frigo is the standard name for a refrigerator (nobody ever says "réfrigérateur").
Kleenex is the standard word meaning "paper handkerchief".
Sopalin is the standard word for "roll of paper towels".
Many automotive parts are called from a brand name too : "Delco" is the only name an igniter is ever called; a flexible black tube is always called a "Durit" whatever its brand.
A modular pre-made, stackable non permanent housing module is an "Algeco".
A bus stop with a roof is called an Abribus.
A supermarket trolley is almost always called a Caddie.
A credit card is universally called a "Carte Bleue" or CB, to the point that people will happily use the nonsensical "CB" acronym for a credit card when speaking English.
Cellophane is called Cellophane. I don't even know of an another word for it :)
- rubalise for the white-and-red tape used in streets
- mobylette for that very specific old style scooter
- pédalo for the floating thingy on the beaches with pedals
As for cellophane I always called it "film plastique" or just "plastique", but this varies a lot from region to region and family to family.
As for Durit, it's actually a bit more interesting as the brand was genericised to "durite". It's so prevalent that we have expressions using it like "péter une durite" as a way to say "going crazy".
In Russian we also do this 1uite a lot. Xerox, google and photoshop are absolutely normal for activities.
Also, thermos for vacuum flask. Dandy is a term for NES clones. doshirak or rolton for ramen noodles. Fairy for dish washing liquid.
Sure, it is also klaxon, cellophane and scotch.
Interesting, that champagne is the only case I know that won the fight. My friends often say sparkling wine for generic brands.
In Brazil it is still used as a photocopy term (much easier to say "tirar uma xerox" than "tirar uma fotocópia").
Other common terms that we use that came from brands:
shaving razor -> gilete (instead of "lâmina de barbear")
chewing gum -> chiclete (instead of "goma de mascar")
cotton swab -> cotonete (a J&J brand, instead of "haste flexível")
polystyrene -> isopor (a Knauf brand, instead of "esferovite" or "poliestireno expandido")
This happens a lot here in Brazil. Some brands are so famous that they are synonyms of some products, e. g. Gillette (razor blade), Bom Bril (steel wool), Insulfim (window film) and so on.
Xerox is a curious thing here. It is a so strong synonym to photocopy that almost no one remembers that it is a brand (at least, I don't remember seeing in person any Xerox device). It is so strong that xerox also means the shops were the photocopies are made.
Just place Google Maps over São Paulo, search for "xerox" and see what happens
I think the "defend it or lose it" nature of trademarks may be a US wrinkle, but I'm not sure.
During the 90s, Nintendo popularized the use of the term "game console" to avoid people's moms calling their competitors "Nintendos". Like Atari before them, their name had become synonymous with video games in general, something they wanted to avoid in order to protect their trademark.
There are references to "consoles" before this happened, dating back to the early 80s, but in everyday language most kids called them "video game systems" or by their brand names (Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc.).
The manuals for the NES, SNES, and N64 never once used the term "Game Console". They exclusively called it the "Control Deck". It's not until the GameCube (2001) that they finally refer to the system as a "Console" in the user manual.
Does anyone know any people who actually called their consoles "Control Decks"?
In Brazil, "xerox" is synonym with copy and is used in pretty much any context where the latter word makes sense (even if it's not a copy of a document). The verb "xerocar" derives from it, and even appears in dictionaries.
In Russian it did stick as a word for photocopiers (ксерокс), copies (ксерокопия) and the act of copying (ксерить, ксерокопировать) to this day.
At this point it's more of a legend, but it goes that the word we use for toilet, унитаз, is the brand name of the company that sold toilets in 19th century.
Scotch is one brand of adhesive tape but we call all such tape "скотч".
In Canada an in-sink garbage disposal unit is called a Garburator. I recently learned that’s a brand name of said devices. I’ve lived in the states for a while now, but I’m entirely unsure what everyone calls them down here.
If you've never seen the video ad that went along with this campaign, it's hilarious and worth watching, as is the follow up. I love the good humor about the whole thing. And it has made their campaign stick in ways that other similar campaigns have not.
Cute attempt, but Velcro/velcro has already been genericised for decades at this point. Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," especially when the alternative rolls off the tongue a lot better.
> Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," especially when the alternative rolls off the tongue a lot better.
Cynically, I wonder if they intentionally chose an alternative that they know is a dud. They clearly do benefit from people calling it Velcro, they just can’t have a trademark judge thinking that they want people to call it Velcro.
In any case, the video is quite fun and well done. If you take it as a marketing campaign without putting too much weight on the legal strategy, it’s smart and well-executed on their part.
That may not matter to Velcro (TM). As long as they're publicly making attempts to defend their trademark, perhaps that is enough for them to keep legal rights to it.
Surely you know from reading the article that it's actually "Velcro® Brand". It's easier to follow than most telenovelas. We get it, hook and loop isn’t in our everyday vocabulary, but calling it Velcro (TM) just wouldn’t be true.
> Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," […]
I do, depending on the audience — I'm fine with hook-and-loop. In general I try to avoid generic trademarks whenever reasonable. In English this takes more effort; in Dutch this isn't too much of an issue. No native Dutch speaker would consider calling an 'ijsdweilmachine' a 'zamboni', for example. It seems that this is very much a US English thing to do.
"Hook-and-loop" is a crappy name for it in English because it conveys an image of someone physically performing a hooking and looping action, like the old-timey hobby, latch hooking[0]. But the action you perform is really just either pressing together or pulling apart. The fact that the mechanism is comprised of tiny hooks and loops isn't really germane to how it works on a macro level. I quite like the "fur tape" mock suggestion in the second video.
Nah, it happens in Dutch too. Aspirine for example is commonly used for the generic medicine, even though it's a brand name. (Hell, it's sometimes even used as a general term for a light over-the-counter pain killer like paracetamol.)
TomTom is also sometimes used for general navigation systems, though that has been going downhill as fast as the company.
"Googlen" is used too in the general sense. Google does have a huge market share, so it's usually correct, but people do "google on Bing".
Readit News
I think VELCRO(r) actually DOES want everybody to use their name the way it is commonly used - it's good for brand recognition.
But legally, retaining control of their brand requires them to clearly defend it from such generic use. This post is an example of that. If someone is using their brand in a way they don't want (like on a product not made by them), they can win a trademark case in court by pointing to posts like this.
The Lego Group's material says that you are never to use Lego as a noun. It's always "Lego bricks", "Lego sets", "Lego minifigures", etc.
Colloquially, they don't really care what you call them, plural or singular.
Defending and suing helps keep it in the middle ground, but they're not going to sue Pat on the street for misusing the word -- which is where generic comes from, right?
Also, unsurprisingly, Adobe has a whole section in their trademarks page about photoshopping[3]:
> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
> Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.
[1]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-you-google.html
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_litigation#Genericide_o...
[3]: https://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html
This makes me laugh every time I read it. Surely, even the lawyers at Adobe are fully aware that literally nobody is going to use that mouthful of a term (complete with ®s, even).
I always wonder why they didn't come up with a replacement that would actually have a chance.
I guarantee you marketing teams at Adobe will use that term.
> plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence in this case to support a jury finding that the relevant public primarily understands the word "google" as a generic name for internet search engines and not as a mark identifying the Google search engine in particular.
I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used. My lived experience has me telling people that I googled something despite my default search engine being DDG on all of my devices. One can’t really present the myriad spoken conversations which include this use as evidence in court, so what would they do?
Slightly aside: the “correct” examples that are given are always amusing but there’s something about Adobe’s double copyright symbol that hits me harder. That is too funny, not least because they’re 100% serious-face about it.
So even though you personally use DDG, surely there are still vastly more searches on Google than on all other search engines combined so there's no immediate danger of dilution.
I do have a question though for people familiar with trademark law. Why can't they just do away with the trademark dilution rule? So what if I want to go "rollerblading" on pair of K2s [1]? Why should Rollerblade be at risk of losing their trademark? Who is being served by this rule? It just seems to incentivize litigious behavior.
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share (note that they easily beat all other search engines combined
[1] https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health-products/g46167391/b... (Good Housekeeping has no problem genericizing rollerblade all throughout this article. Perhaps unlike Velcro, Nordica is ok with this?)
IANAL, but perhaps the dividing line isn't whether or not the term is commonly used as a generic one, but whether people are not generally aware that it's a brand name. I wasn't aware that "Velcro" was a brand name for a long time, for instance.
I think the majority of people using "google" generically are also fully aware that "Google" is a brand name.
So the evidence would be some sort of study showing that people think it's really generic?
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Dumb question: how would you pronounce this if you were saying it ? Specifically the ® symbol ?
Serious answer: You don't. You just leave it out in speech.
Ridiculous.
Actually I do have some sympathy; from working at Xerox I somehow was convinced to say “photocopy” (not that anyone uses either expression any more). And I always say “web search” because I don’t want to endorse or encourage the use of google.
They are desperately trying to make it _not_ the abbreviation this comment claims it to be. Quite like "kleenex" in that way.
Normal people generally shouldn't care what the company's legal team wants or thinks--this campaign certainly doesn't stop me from using the term generically--but if the company defends its trademark in this way, it can extend the time _other_ _companies_ can use it as a generic description of what it does.
Velcro is the right word.
Xerox is acceptable but not what I reach for first.
Kleenex just sounds wrong. It's tissue and always has been.
Maybe it's a regional thing? NorCal.
You're arguing against a claim I didn't make. I simply said it's an abbreviation for a French phrase (the inventor was a French speaking swiss). Contractions of this sort are more common in French than straight acronyms, which tend to be more common in English. I didn't say it was some pre-existing word.
HooLoo? I think another company may object to that name.
They're trying to avoid genericide. I think if they didn't do this, they could actually lose the trademark.
I mean in most cases where a term becomes "generic" it has been long time generic before at some point someone bothers to make a study/lawsuit which declares it as generic as result.
For example pretty much everyone I know uses Lego as a generic term and knows about not Lego produced bricks. Currently Lego still managed to defend the trademark but IMHO it's just a matter of time until it becomes generic because it already defacto is and the only reason they still avoid it becoming generic is protectionism.
After all there are regions where all soda is called “coke” and that trademark hasn’t been lost.
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Is this a uniquely US thing? In the UK, people always say "hoover" instead of "vacuum".
Frigidaire and its abbreviated form frigo is the standard name for a refrigerator (nobody ever says "réfrigérateur").
Kleenex is the standard word meaning "paper handkerchief".
Sopalin is the standard word for "roll of paper towels".
Many automotive parts are called from a brand name too : "Delco" is the only name an igniter is ever called; a flexible black tube is always called a "Durit" whatever its brand.
A modular pre-made, stackable non permanent housing module is an "Algeco".
A bus stop with a roof is called an Abribus.
A supermarket trolley is almost always called a Caddie.
A credit card is universally called a "Carte Bleue" or CB, to the point that people will happily use the nonsensical "CB" acronym for a credit card when speaking English.
Cellophane is called Cellophane. I don't even know of an another word for it :)
- bic for a ball pen
- scotch for duct tape
- kalxon for a car honk
- rubalise for the white-and-red tape used in streets
- mobylette for that very specific old style scooter
- pédalo for the floating thingy on the beaches with pedals
As for cellophane I always called it "film plastique" or just "plastique", but this varies a lot from region to region and family to family.
As for Durit, it's actually a bit more interesting as the brand was genericised to "durite". It's so prevalent that we have expressions using it like "péter une durite" as a way to say "going crazy".
Sure, it is also klaxon, cellophane and scotch.
Interesting, that champagne is the only case I know that won the fight. My friends often say sparkling wine for generic brands.
This floor is made of floor
shaving razor -> gilete (instead of "lâmina de barbear")
chewing gum -> chiclete (instead of "goma de mascar")
cotton swab -> cotonete (a J&J brand, instead of "haste flexível")
polystyrene -> isopor (a Knauf brand, instead of "esferovite" or "poliestireno expandido")
Xerox is a curious thing here. It is a so strong synonym to photocopy that almost no one remembers that it is a brand (at least, I don't remember seeing in person any Xerox device). It is so strong that xerox also means the shops were the photocopies are made.
Just place Google Maps over São Paulo, search for "xerox" and see what happens
During the 90s, Nintendo popularized the use of the term "game console" to avoid people's moms calling their competitors "Nintendos". Like Atari before them, their name had become synonymous with video games in general, something they wanted to avoid in order to protect their trademark.
There are references to "consoles" before this happened, dating back to the early 80s, but in everyday language most kids called them "video game systems" or by their brand names (Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc.).
Does anyone know any people who actually called their consoles "Control Decks"?
https://www.dicio.com.br/xerocar/https://dicionario.priberam.org/xerocar
No, in Russia people have been xerring documents since photocopiers appeared there.
At this point it's more of a legend, but it goes that the word we use for toilet, унитаз, is the brand name of the company that sold toilets in 19th century.
Scotch is one brand of adhesive tape but we call all such tape "скотч".
https://youtu.be/rRi8LptvFZY?si=nfzpn2DDngeyyETN
https://youtu.be/ZLWMQLMiTPk?si=28csS65KpQyoFrEn
Cynically, I wonder if they intentionally chose an alternative that they know is a dud. They clearly do benefit from people calling it Velcro, they just can’t have a trademark judge thinking that they want people to call it Velcro.
In any case, the video is quite fun and well done. If you take it as a marketing campaign without putting too much weight on the legal strategy, it’s smart and well-executed on their part.
Surely you know from reading the article that it's actually "Velcro® Brand". It's easier to follow than most telenovelas. We get it, hook and loop isn’t in our everyday vocabulary, but calling it Velcro (TM) just wouldn’t be true.
Turns out judges used to be lawyers and are pretty good at reading between the lines, too.
I do, depending on the audience — I'm fine with hook-and-loop. In general I try to avoid generic trademarks whenever reasonable. In English this takes more effort; in Dutch this isn't too much of an issue. No native Dutch speaker would consider calling an 'ijsdweilmachine' a 'zamboni', for example. It seems that this is very much a US English thing to do.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4MDeHa_1C-w
TomTom is also sometimes used for general navigation systems, though that has been going downhill as fast as the company.
"Googlen" is used too in the general sense. Google does have a huge market share, so it's usually correct, but people do "google on Bing".
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