europeforvisitors - 5:42 pm on Aug 14, 2006 (gmt 0)

Have Johnson and Joshnson lawyers have been missing the boat all this time? How many people have tried to steal the Band-Aid name over the term.... Band-Aid solution? NONE! How many tradmarks has Xerox lost over the terms like "I Xeroxed it"

A 'Trademark Protection' article [lectlaw.com] at the 'Lectric Law Library lists some of the trademarks that have been victims of "genericide" over the years--among them, Aspirin, Nylon, Cellophane, and Zipper. That's why companies like Xerox and Johnson & Johnson zealously protect their trademarks, just as Google does. Over the years, I've seen any number of ads in magazines like EDITOR & PUBLISHER, the COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, and WRITERS DIGEST by companies that have asked writers not to misuse their trademarks.

As for why Google's lawyers weren't quicker off the mark, that's probably due to the fact that Google is a fairly new company without a lot of experience in matters like trademark protection. It probably didn't have a trademark attorney on staff or a trademark-law firm on retainer until recently. But that's a side issue to what we're discussing; it has no bearing on the fact that Google needs to make a good-faith effort to prevent its trademark from being genericized. You can pooh-pooh trademark law if you wish, but Google doesn't have that luxury.