Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!isis!nyx!kreme From: kreme@nyx.UUCP (Harvey Leech) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: New 2.4 meg drive Message-ID: <2036@nyx.UUCP> Date: 5 Sep 90 07:48:31 GMT References: <6553@darkstar.ucsc.edu> Reply-To: kreme@nyx.UUCP (Harvey Leech) Organization: St. Edwards Guild (SEG) Lines: 30 In article jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross) writes: >unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu (The Unknown User) >> There's a new type of drive out. This is a trademarked term, but >> it seems to have been taken as the generic like Xerox and Kleenex. >Xerox is a registered trademark of Xerox Corporation. Tell me, do you say "I need to photocopy these papers." Or do you, like most people in the US say, "I need to Xerox these papers." ??? >Kleenex is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark. "I'm going to sneeze, please hand me a facial quality tissue." >Both companies VIGOROUSLY defend their trademarks. NEITHER is a >generic. He didn;t say they were generic, just that they have been TAKEN as generic, like Kleenex and Xerox, but unlike Armour All or Pepsi. People use them in common speech to refer not just to the particular brand name, but to the entire class of products. In the case of floptical, I doubt the attempt to trademark this word will work. Aren't the drives on the NeXT refered to as "flopticals?" >When a company does not defend their trademark, like "elevator" and >"asprint", they lose it. Neither of the companies you cited above >has become lax in the defense of their trademark. Once again, just because a trademark is still a trademark does not mean that people do not use it in speech as a generic term. People do not sa, "Here, Mita these papers" or "I need a Topco to blow my nose."