Seattle Trademark Lawyer

A Xerox ad asking consumers not to use its brand as a generic
substitute for “copy machine.” (STL post on the ad here.)

The Associated Press ran a good story this weekend about the possibility and ramifications of “iPad” becoming a generic synonym for “tablet.”

I was fortunate enough to lend a quote about the struggle famous brand owners face in wanting their brand to become widely adopted — but not so widely adopted that it becomes generic. “Marketing people want the brand name as widespread as possible and trademark lawyers worry … the brand will lose all trademark significance.”

The story does a nice job of explaining why brand owners sometimes are put in the uncomfortable position of trying to persuade consumers not only to purchase their products, but also not to use their brand in a way the company doesn’t like — as Xerox has done with its branded copy machines.

In the end, I’m not too concerned for Apple. It was right to give the public a generic word to refer to the class of goods in which its product competes: tablets. Perhaps for that reason alone, I don’t see anyone referring to an Amazon Fire tablet as an Amazon Fire “iPad” anytime soon. Still, the article does as good a job as I’ve seen explaining why genericide matters to famous brand owners.