From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property (2014)

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Losing a trademark

Losing a trademark

From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property (2014)

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Losing a trademark

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Now, imagine a situation where a trademark loses distinctiveness. In many cases, in the history of America, there have been product names that have once been a brand name. And because they were so widely used by consumers to describe the product, no matter what the product source was, that it became generic. It lost its distinctiveness. We actually have a name for it, it's called genericide. So you could lose trademark rights if your product is wildly successful, so successful that people stop referring to you as the source and refer to your product name for all of those. If anyone's ever used an adjustable wrench. As a child, I grew up calling this the Crescent wrench. Well, that's what the generic name for an adjustable wrench is now but once upon a time, that was a brand. It was called the Crescent wrench because Crescent was the source of the goods. That company lost its distinction because the consumer stopped identifying adjustable wrenches from Crescent as the brand, and…

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