hutcheson - 8:05 pm on Oct 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

>They own the trademark, but not the market or the channel.

This may not be a simple case. I think it's inherently difficult, simply because of the concepts involved.

On the one hand, to "own a trademark" means to be able to restrict its use to refer to any (competing) product. That control is exercisable in EVERY commercial context: in EVERY market, and in EVERY commercial channel. Just because you "own", say, a food market, doesn't mean you can make your own bottled colored corn syrup and call it "Coke" and sell it therein: and the Coca-Cola Corporation has legions of lawyers to explain this to you. You don't have to sell ANY colored corn syrup. You can sell CCS from another source--but you must NOT let ANYONE call it coke: not your clerks, not your marketroids, and not even your customers! (That's because someone owns the "Coke" brand, and the only reason anyone would call a CCS drink "Coke" is because of the ubiquitous brand. Even that brand COULD easily become generic, if those legions of lawyers didn't keep busy.)

On the other hand, "American Airlines" is really THE way, in the English language, to speak of certain generic concepts, for example, the class of all airline companies based in (or operating in) America. It is inherently a generic phrase.