March 7, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode of Two IPs in a Pod, Lee and Gwilym are joined by Natasha Bamu from Barron Warren Redfern to explore the world of Trade Mark Genericide—what it is, how it happens, and the steps brands can take to prevent it. Plus, Gwilym puts a few word games to the test, with some unexpected results!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod
and you are listening to apodcast on intellectual property
brought to you by the CharteredInstitute of Patent Attorneys.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Hey, gwilym, how are you, mate?
Not seen you for a little while.
I know how are you, mate, notseeing you for a little while, I
know, uh, how are you?
Yeah, no, I'm really good.
I say I'm really good.
I um, I injured myself playingsquash last week quite badly, um
, and I've been limping, I've,I've torn the I can't ever say
this right the plantar fascia,tendon or ligament or whatever
it is on the base of the footand uh, it's quite painful that
(00:44):
would look like the thing whichfootball springy.
Yes, that's the one yeah, itactually felt so.
When it happened, I was playinga backhand and I lunged forward
with my left foot and it feltlike my arch had collapsed.
It felt like my foot suddenlywent flat to the floor and, uh,
that's agony.
I'm not, not advised, don't doit.
Do you make a distinctive?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
sound when you walk now.
Oh, lee's coming.
It's all, flat foot, lee Ifound the um.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I found the side effect of it.
It's quite interesting.
That's because I'm trying tokeep my heel off the floor when
I'm walking.
I'm now getting a lot of calfpain as well, so it's like, oh
no not good it's not good flipflap, it's flip tippy toe.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that god, I
want to see this anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Can, aside from my um ailments, can I just make a
couple of observations about you?
You've combed your hair no, Ihaven't.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I got my hair cut.
I forget it cuts short even ahaircut.
It just sticks out in the rightdirection, so I'm good never
seen you look that tidy.
You know, I trim my beard everynow and then.
Every six years I'll dosomething.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And why have you got up-wide-down jellyfish floating
above your right ear?
Why haven't you?
Oh yeah, indeed, yeah, I didn'trealise it was part of the
essential podcasting kit.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Can you see me shaking?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
See you shaking.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I've got the shake.
Yes, are you nervous?
No, I'm.
I'm just coming down off aterrifying experience.
I've just taken my first everline bike ride in london.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I've never done it before is that not a not a good
experience?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
it's great line bikes , wonderful thing.
That's my problem solved.
But I cycle in london tons butI've never taken an e-bike
before.
It is nerve-wracking I am.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So I have a thing, a thing about cyclists in london
and I know, I know that allcyclists say.
All cyclists say because I'vespoken to enough of them that
those that go through red lightsand bother pedestrians that are
in the minority, they're not.
It's pretty much every singlecyclist will go through red
lights, regardless of wherepedestrians are.
I despise cyclists and I usedto be one I've decided and I am
(02:47):
one.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
No, it irritates me because I do stop and I'm the
idiot who's not moving.
But what I do love occasionallysomeone will actually say to
you, thank you for stopping, andit is the most validating thing
.
It's really nice let's neverstop this.
It's getting worse, definitelybut, it's quite difficult to
stop an e-bike.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It's terrifying, oh yeah, I've never cycled in
London.
Never want to cycle in London.
It looks terrifying.
Agreed, okay, should we crackon with the show?
Yeah, so we're a little bit outof our comfort zone today,
(03:24):
because normally I mean, I knowwe're a podcast that spans all
of IP, but we do tend togravitate towards patent and
heavy tech stuff, and thenoccasionally we have an
inspiration to get on someone tocome and speak to us about
areas of IP that are, dare I sayit, possibly more interesting
than patents, gwilym, and we'vegot one of those today.
So should we welcome Natasha tothe podcast?
Hey, natasha, how are you?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Hello, I'm good, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
No, it's great to have you on, and this is the
outcome of you and I having alittle bit of a conversation on
LinkedIn.
Isn't it great that the worldworks like that these days?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, yeah, it is yeah.
So first of all, introduceyourself.
Who are you?
What do you do?
So my name is Natasha.
I am a trademark attorney atBaron Warren Redfern.
I work with Jerry Bridge Butler, who I think you've had on the
show a couple of times actually.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
We have had Jerry on a couple of times, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah and yeah, so I work with him in the trademark
team.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And yeah, so I work with him in the trademark team.
Cool Interesting thing aboutJerry.
I sometimes use AI to help medo minutes and Jerry's name was
in a set of minutes I was tryingto do I think it was yesterday
and I can't remember if it wasCopilot or whatever I was using
managed to recognise him as JoeyBridge Builder.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I might start calling him that.
Actually, that's quite, that'sgot a complimentary name though
bridge builder.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, what a great way to gothrough life building bridges.
Anyway, it's um, that's not.
We're not on to talk aboutjerry, even though he seems to
be on podcast more than me andwillem.
So, natasha, this came aboutbecause I think something that
you wrote for sitmar appeared inwas it in sitmar journal and
online about brands that gothrough something called
genericide.
Is that I got that right?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
yes, yeah, that's correct.
So I uh wrote a blog post for umthe sitmar blog um, about
genericide, uh, which isbasically when a trademark or
registered trademark, slowly,over time although for some it
happens quite quickly becomes ageneric term.
(05:33):
As you know, a trademark is asign that companies use to
distinguish their products,their goods and services from
those of others.
So really, you know, it's allabout being distinctive and it's
all about standing out.
But over time, sometimes, whenyour brand is so good and you
(05:55):
become so popular, you run therisk of your trademark becoming
generic.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's when, now, the public start using your
trademark to refer to just thosegoods in general, um, and, and
it's no longer really seen as atrademark that belongs to one
company oh, and so I thinkthey're sort of fairly obvious
ones that most of us know, butyou want to sort of give us some
insight into the, perhaps thehistory and the background of
(06:22):
this yes, well, I mean, there'snot much of a history to it
really it's.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It starts really with just the definition of a
trademark.
Uh, one of the essentialfunctions of a trademark, as I
said before, is to to allow abusiness to distinguish itself
from others, um, and kind ofshow the origin of their
products, so.
So if it can't do that, thenessentially it can't perform
that essential function of atrademark.
(06:50):
So, you know, instead of nowbeing that mark that companies,
the public, use to kind of referto your business, it's now just
that generic word and that canhappen to anyone at any time.
And there's marks that havetrademarks that have kind of
become generic as far back asthe 1920s.
(07:12):
And then there's this, you knowthe same problem happening to
trademarks today, this year,last year is it?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
is it a bad thing?
Is it a good thing?
Is it indifferent?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I think from a trademark perspective it is a
bad thing really.
Um, you want to be successful,you want everybody to know your
brand, you know.
But really it's kind of adisadvantage of being too
successful and too well known,because the line starts to blur
a little bit you, when you're nolonger a brand and people think
(07:45):
actually your brand is just aproduct.
So you've kind of lost thattrademark.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Really, I was quite fascinated by the trampoline one
, because, I mean, I didn't knowthat it was known as the
rebound tumbler back in the 30sand then, obviously, over time,
trampoline became generic yesyeah, so otherwise, yeah, it
(08:12):
doesn't make the same, does itasking the kids if they'd like
to have a rebound tumbler in thegarden?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
no, it doesn't.
It doesn't sound as fun.
Um, there's, there's a lot ofmarks that that that's to.
And you know, when I waswriting this blog post and I was
having a look at some examples,I was really surprised at some
of the ones that I came acrossthat were actually registered
trademarks before.
Heroin was actually one of them, and yeah, and that really
(08:43):
surprised me.
Yes, yeah, of them.
Um, and yeah, and that reallysurprised me.
Yes, yeah, heroin used to be,um, a trademark owned by Bayer.
Um, for a kid like why yeah,well, a morphine alternative is
what the actual product was um,and that became generic as early
as 1919, actually, wow.
(09:05):
So, yeah, I mean, you know,nowadays you would never think
that comes from one particularsource or it's a product really
like that, but it once was, andone that kind of came and went
really quickly was Airfryer.
So Airfryer is, yeah, it's aregistered trademark, owned by
(09:30):
yeah, owned by phillips, but um,in the in the us now it's
considered generic um, becausethere's lots of different brands
that make air fryers um, but Iguess I guess that one makes a
wee bit of sense, because that'squite descriptive, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
that's you know, and it, and that's not just a
trademark, that is actually whatit does.
It fries using air.
So I can, I can understand howthat happened, but things like
hoover, um, so hoover doesn't inany way, shape or form in its
original sense, suggest thathere is a device that kind of
sucks up dirt through theprocess of a vacuum or whatever
it, whatever it might be, um,and yet it became generic and
(10:08):
that that makes less sense to me.
Why did that, you know?
Why did we come to recognizeanything that cleaned carpets as
a hoover?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
yeah, that's it.
I mean that's, that's theperfect example of actually
becoming too well known, like sowell known and so recognized
just for you.
You know, for for that productthat people will always just say
, oh, just you know, I'm justgonna hoover, I'm just gonna
hoover the carpet, or I'm gonnagrab the hoover, or I'm gonna
(10:36):
hoover the carpet with my dyson.
So, yeah, that that's a perfectexample of that happening.
And you know a lot of companiesthey try, they really try, to
say this is a registeredtrademark, these are Hoover
(10:57):
vacuum cleaners, and there'slots of different ways they can
try to still kind of maintainthe mark and try to say, well,
no, this is the brand, it's notthe product, and they'll keep
trying to do that.
But it's really hard to controlthings like that really.
I mean, once it's with thepublic, they're going to refer
(11:18):
to these things how they want to.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, I guess the public aren't great respecters
of brand and IP in that sense,are they?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
no, no, and it's.
It's always, you know, to dowith, I think, how language kind
of um develops as well and andhow people talk um it.
That is a very difficult thingto try for businesses to try to
control anyway.
Um, just even with things likeslang and how people want to
refer to stuff, once it's outthere, it's not so much in their
(11:50):
control anymore and the publicwill call it whatever they want
to.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
The brand creators must just be gleeful that they
came up with a word that was sogood that it became the word for
the thing, like Hoover, whichis used.
You know, I'm going to Hooverit up.
That's much more.
You know, he just Hoovered hismeal up.
It's become a really clearmeaning word and I'm sure the
brand people you know, I'mguessing, are all frustrated
poets anyway, I think, and I'veliterally added to the, I've
(12:18):
literally added to the English,whatever language.
What a fantastic surprise.
The lawyers, on the other hand,obviously are thinking oh, what
have you done?
Your word's too good.
Does that mean that brandcreators should come up with a
not quite so good brand?
Would that be your advice tosomebody?
That's too good, that's goingto go generic, that word's too
good, come up with a worse word.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I came up with the worst word.
I mean, it's really difficultto tell what's going to be too
good, uh, at the beginning.
Uh, because you come up withsomething.
It's so distinctive, it'sbrilliant, like hoover, it's
very distinctive, um, googlevery distinctive, but, um, you
know, there's no way to reallytell oh, this is just so good
that it's going to be bad for us.
It's all to do with the successof the business and how that
(13:01):
mark and how that brand kind ofcatches on, how much the public
really like it and kind of thedifferent ways that you can play
with it as well.
Really.
So you know, it's hard to kindof tell what's going to be a bad
trademark, as in what's got thepotential to become generic,
(13:23):
because, like with the air fryersituation, it can happen very
quickly, but, like with some ofthe other brands, some of the
older brands, it takes time.
It takes time for the companyto kind of grow and get bigger.
The brand gets bigger andbigger and then it's just one of
those things that happen justbecome too big for your own good
.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Really it also, I guess, be a function of
exclusivity.
Um, yeah, you're the onlypeople maybe because your patent
portfolio, the only people whocan actually make this product
and therefore there's only one.
So again you think, oh, I'venailed this, I've got a really
good name and I've got, I'm theonly person who can make this
product.
But it might be that almostinevitably in those
circumstances you end up with ageneric trademark, because it's
(14:05):
the only word for the thing,because no one else makes it
yeah, exactly, exactly that.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I mean that that's a very unfortunate situation to be
in what initially kind of lookslike a great situation.
You've got this fantastic brandand great trademark and you've
got a patent, so you're the onlyone that can kind of do it.
But then you know what, whenyour brand becomes generic but
then you're the only one thatcan do it and it's difficult
(14:30):
because you you can try to kindof balance that, you can try to
control that, but I guess if youhave, if you have the pattern,
then you can continue to be theonly one doing it.
So that brings in a little bitof balance.
Um, because then the otherpeople can't make the actual
product for a while you gotpatterns in, I got patterns in
(14:53):
lee.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I managed it.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I got patterns yeah, I knew, I knew you'd manage it
somehow um another.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So as you know you, so you imagine.
One is one, one's got a greatbrand and suddenly one's seeing
it being used online and thepapers on tv in a generic way.
What can?
Is anything you can do about itis is it too late?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
um, I mean there's, there is stuff that you can, you
can do to try to manage thesituation.
I think if you kind of see itcoming, there's some things that
you can do.
I would always say forbusinesses just kind of be ahead
of it Before that's apossibility, try to get
(15:34):
everything in place and try tokind of use your mark in a way
that you know in the bestpossible way for it to not
become generic, so you can pairyour trademark with a generic
word.
So I always say, like Lego,lego is the brand, but if you
just call them Legos, then youknow you're kind of allowing,
(15:59):
allowing room for it to maybebecome generic.
But if you say Lego blocks,then you're talking about the
blocks, but you've made it clearthat Lego is your brand and
also you can have lots ofdifferent products under the
same brand and that actuallymakes it a little bit harder for
the public to then use yourbrand to refer to one type of
(16:22):
product makes sense so, uh, withvaseline, for example, you can
have vaseline petroleum jelly,you can have vaseline body
lotion, you can have vaselinehand cream.
So when someone says you need toget some vaseline, well what?
Which one?
Which product um?
(16:43):
yeah although I do think thatone's on the on the brink a
little bit, because when peoplesay vaseline, everyone naturally
thinks of the petroleum jelly.
Yeah, that that's.
That's something you can do.
Um, you just have to stayvigilant as well.
Really, keep an eye out, youknow.
If you see anybody sort of usingit generically, even if it's
(17:09):
referred to in like an articleor in the press or in any way,
you know, you should try tocorrect it, try to educate the
public that actually this is atrademark, this is the brand.
You can use the registeredtrademark symbol as well, right
next to the right, next to thetrademark, to show that actually
this is the trademark,especially if you are using it
(17:30):
with the generic word next to it.
So lego registered trademarksymbol in the top right hand
corner and then blocks.
You can have the trademarksymbol in the top right-hand
corner and then blocks.
You can have the trademark in amore distinctive kind of bold
font.
There's lots of different waysthat you can make that trademark
stand out.
And also, if you're licensingthe mark as well, you need to
(17:53):
make sure that your licenseesare using it in the same way.
So things like brand guidelinesand trademark use guidelines
are very helpful so that it'snot just you.
Anyone else who's affiliatedwith your mark or using your
mark hopefully with yourpermission is doing the same
thing.
There's examples of quite a fewcompanies actually that do that
(18:17):
well.
Examples of quite a fewcompanies actually that do that
well.
Google actually have a brandresource page which has the do's
and don'ts when it comes totrademark use.
So how to use the mark, how tokind of say, google search
engine and not looking it up onGoogle or Googling it, which I
(18:38):
think we all do.
We all say, oh, just Google it,and then people go and Google
stuff on Bing.
So it's, you know, you can try.
But again it goes back to thatpoint of very difficult to
control the public.
Biscoff, lotus, biscoff have areally good trademark use
(19:00):
guidelines page and that advisespeople, especially those using
Biscoff products in theirrecipes and things like that.
It kind of advises them how touse it when you're advertising
these products.
So things like when it comes tonaming these products that
contain Biscoff products, how tocommunicate that on menus,
(19:24):
communicate that in stores, andeven photography you know how
you shouldn't really layer thebrand or the mark over photos,
that kind of thing.
So a lot of companies aretrying to do things like that.
But I mean's, these are notabsolute solutions.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You just kind of had to hope it's enough so you give
it a go and you know you, youcommunicate um.
How does it come off theregister?
Who decides it is generic?
Did the, did the police getinvolved at this stage and come
along and say I'm sorry, you'vebecome generic, we're taking you
off the register does?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
the trademark police, the police.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They've got hats with a big r on, so amazing sight
when they come for you.
Um no, do they?
Okay, not, probably not thepolice, but you know does.
Does somebody else who doesn'twant you to have the trademark
anymore?
What's the call?
Their a vacuum cleaner or ahoover?
Come along?
Or does the comptroller of thepatent office decide it's gone
generic?
How does it come off?
How does it become legallygeneric?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Well, this is actually quite funny because a
lot of generic trademarks canjust sit on the register.
They can just sit on theregister for a while until
somebody decides to do somethingabout it.
Certainly in the UK somebodywill have to come along and
apply to revoke that mark andthe grounds for doing that would
(20:52):
have to be that it's now becomegeneric, and then again it goes
back to not being able tofunction as a trademark.
If it's generic, it can't be atrademark.
It might not have been when itwas filed and registered and for
however many years it was beingused.
But if anybody at all wants tocome along and have your mark
(21:14):
revoked on those grounds andthey can apply to do so, and and
then it eventually will be aregistry decision.
Actually, is it generic?
Um, you know, you can.
You can say, well, we've donethis, it's not.
We've done this, we've.
We've done all of these thingsand taken all of these measures
to make sure that our mark is atrademark and the public knows
that it's a trademark.
Um, but yeah, the registry.
(21:38):
If they decide that actually isgeneric, then they can be
revoked for that reason is itdespite?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
yeah, you could make the best efforts in the world,
but it doesn't matter if ithasn't.
It's the outcome of the counts,not the effort.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Okay yeah, exactly that.
Yeah, and and that's.
That's happened.
Um, that's happened to to a lotof trademarks as well.
Um, you know, you think you'reusing it as a trademark, but
sometimes what you're doing justmight not be enough to educate
the public and create that kindof impression that this is a
(22:11):
brand, this is not a product,this is a brand.
If you haven't done that, then,yeah, you do run that risk.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
This is a question to Lee Lee.
Do you remember Rollerblades?
I remember Roll that.
Then, yeah, you do run thatrisk.
This is a question to Lee Lee.
Do you remember rollerblades?
I remember rollerblades.
Yeah, they're not rollerblades,they're inline skates.
How dare you?
Of course they are.
Of course they are.
Yeah, when I started, one of mypartner's job was to get press
cuttings back in the day.
It was press cuttings and hehad the I'll look at it a few
times because I'm sure it'sstill a very strong trademark
but he had the exhausting job ofevery time.
(22:39):
It was a big fad at the timeand every time somebody said
rollerblades he sent a lettersaying I think you'll find
they're actually calledrollerblading line skates and I
think it was the most awful,awful patch of his career.
I think it was never ending.
I don't actually know how thatone panned out, but that was his
job for a long time.
Next is a stock letterRollerblade inline skate.
(23:00):
Nobody's going to call themrollerblade inline skate.
No one's going to say anybodyfancy going out to do some
trampoline rebound tumbling.
It's just like you say, lee.
It's really difficult in thereal world, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Or hey, I need to wrap some presents.
Has anyone got a transparent,cellulose based, pressure
sensitive adhesive tape, thingshe memorizes?
Uh, yeah, no, no, I've gotwikipedia open at the moment.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Other online, other online resources for checking
things like this are obviouslyavailable yeah, or anybody on
the morphine based product thatmakes you a bit dreamy, yeah and
so one of the questions andthis may be, may be something
that isn't within your area ofsort of expertise, natasha,
sorry about that.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I was wondering, in sort of thinking about coming on
the podcast is this, is itsomething that's peculiar to
English language, or does thishappen in sort of like with all
languages?
Is this sort of taking a brandand making it shorthand for
something Is that common justacross the world?
Sort of take taking a brand andmaking it shorthand for
something.
Is that common just across theworld.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Um well, I'm not.
I'm not entirely sure about inother languages, but I can
imagine it being the case, Imean yeah with um.
You know most, most countries inthe world with you know, with
english a lot, a lot of thesetrademarks are not just uk or us
or um eu trademarks.
(24:24):
They're international um marks.
So some, some of these markshave actually become generic in
a lot of countries where theyspeak lots of different
languages as well.
So I'm not entirely sure how itwould work in other languages.
I can imagine it being the same, but certainly English words
(24:47):
that were once trademarks andhave become generic, it kind of
does have the same effect inother countries as well.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And it didn't seem to me, looking at a long list of
former trademarks that have beengenericised.
That's the header of theWikipedia page, if anyone really
wants to look it up.
It didn't seem to me, lookingat a long list of former
trademarks that have beengenericised.
That's the header of theWikipedia page, if anyone really
wants to look it up.
It didn't seem to me that therewas a distinction between words
that were fairly obvious, likeair fryer I mean, that's as I
say, that's describing what'shappening as much as a brand and
words that are in no way shapeor form related to actually what
(25:17):
the product is, that are in noway shape or form related to
actually what the product is,like I don't know, like maybe
Escalator or something else.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It seems entirely random whether something becomes
generic or not.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I thinkyou're right.
It's the way the public pick itup and how they choose to use
it Once it's out there.
That's it really, isn't it?
I mean, one of the ones that Ifound really interesting.
It's not actually, it's still aregistered trademark, but it's
(25:47):
quite generic still is Onesie.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
That was just a silly word.
You know, know you, youwouldn't, you wouldn't think
that at all.
Um, it's still a registeredtrademark, but, um, it's owned
by a company called gerberchildren's wear, and um, they
refer to it as adult body suitsor whatever children's body
(26:17):
suits or whatever.
But um, you know anyone thatbuys that sort of product.
You call it a onesie, no matterwhere you get it from.
Um, and then there are otherones that are so obvious, like
you said, like the air fryer one.
Um, I've come across some ofthese recently and I'm really
surprised as well.
The cash point.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Cash point is an actual trademark, um, for I'm
getting so many, so many pubfacts.
I mean I'm gonna win the nextpub conversation.
I've got everything heroin cashpoint onesie.
I'm all over this.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
This is brilliant yeah, I was really, really
surprised by some of I think youprobably know the ones like
Post-it for sticky notes andRizzler for rolling papers, but
some of these ones, they reallycaught me off guard when I came
(27:15):
across them Addictophone as well.
Addictophone is a trademarkthat belongs to a company called
Nuance Communications.
They're part of Microsoft, Ibelieve.
But I mean, I would thinkAddictophone is just any product
like that.
I would call that Addictophone.
(27:36):
You know, even when you'reaware of these kind of issues,
you can't help it.
That's just how we are.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
That's how we speak.
I love Jacuzzi, because I thinkall of us you say the word
Jacuzzi.
You know exactly what it is,don't you?
It's a whirlpool bath, soyou've gone there.
So that's not just a brand or atrademark, that's become
generic, but that's someone'sname.
So I think that was the italianinventor.
Was um mr jacuzzi?
I don't know his first name, soI should have written that down
(28:05):
something, shouldn't I?
And um?
So it's gone from his name tothe name of something he
invented and then to somethingthat's genetic, that's, that's,
that's quite amazing.
So he lives.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So he lives forever now in the world war buff I was
like I was interested in wi-fi,which is, I think, kind of the
opposite, because I every nowand I think, why is it called
wi-fi?
And then you think it makes nosense at all because it sounds
like hi-fi, which was obviouslyshort for high fidelity, but
wi-fi isn't short for some white, white fidelity or something.
(28:35):
It doesn't actually meananything, but I think it seems
to be the opposite of atrademark, because it seems to
have been designed to becomegeneric.
So that's an interesting thingas well is that that's maybe one
of the few successes wheresomebody actually wanted
something to be generic from dayone and succeeded, because I
think there must be also ahistory of people trying to come
up with words they reallythought would catch on and
they're being reallydisappointed when they didn't.
(29:00):
But that's a different articlethat you haven't written.
So I'm not, we're not going totest you on that, don't worry.
It's actually more difficult,but I think it's.
It is the branding people.
It must be a struggle.
I'd be chuffed, wouldn't you,lee, if you came up with a word
and the whole world used.
It'd be great, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
so you know, I, I think I would, but I can I also
get some sort of sense that ifyou do that for the purposes of
identifying yourself with aparticular brand or product, I
get the fact that it could beproblematic as well, but I think
, yeah, the, the egotist withinme would quite like that I've
got a quick game I've justthought of oh go on then am I
(29:36):
gonna like this?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
words that might be trademarks, but I don't know
right.
So mine, I've just thought ofit.
Now, flip-flop, I've no idea.
Is that a trademark or not?
It's a rubbish game, there's noanswer.
But I reckon flip-flop shouldbe a generic trademark, but I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It might be, I'm not sure about that one, but
flip-phone certainly used to beowned by Motorola.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
That's not a trademark, that's just the name
of a thing.
What's yours, lee?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
so I was, um, I was thinking about Bluetooth,
because I know the origins ofBluetooth, I know it's Nordic.
Isn't it this invention?
And it was?
Wasn't it a king, uh kind ofViking king, uh, in this
invention?
And it was?
Wasn't it a king, uh kind ofviking king, uh, the albert
bluetooth or some, some suchperson?
And I don't know, then, why thekind of connection methodology
(30:28):
device, whatever it is came tobe named after such a person.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
But yeah, so I've no, I've no idea whether it's
generic feels like it feels likeit is carrying onairing with
this completely pointless gamebecause we don't know the
answers.
Microwave I wonder if that wasa trademark that became generic.
It's a great game We've gotlike all day.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Poor Natasha's looking entirely stupid.
Gwilym has invented a game onthe hoof that is.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'm quite enjoying it .
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So how do you win who ?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
wins's not a game, is it?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
it's just silly um, oh, do you know what?
This is the ip version ofmornington crescent.
That would rather mean.
That would rather meansomething to you or not?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
obviously, this is my number I never get, yeah, I
never get invited.
By the way, can you tell?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
well, they'll invite you now with all your facts.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah so what's the?
If so, if someone is startingout on the long road to um, to
taking a product to market, what, what's the golden?
Is there any golden rule aroundbrand name that someone could
follow to try and not findthemselves in this position?
Or is it just a game of chance,like Gwilym's game he made up?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Very similar to Gwilym's game actually.
No well, I mean, I think youcan stay on the right lines with
kind of coming up with a newtrademark.
Up with a new trademark whichis distinctive and brilliant and
probably might look like it'llcatch on and become well-known.
(32:07):
But, as I was saying before,it's really hard to avoid this.
This is more to do with thesuccess of the product or the
company rather than the workbehind picking them up, or the
company rather than the workbehind picking them up, because
really it's to do with howpopular you become or how
well-known you are, and thenthat's what has the effect on
(32:30):
the mark.
Really, it's really difficultto then pick a trademark and
kind of bear this in mind whenyou probably don't even know
where your business is going togo, really.
So it's hard to kind of uh,look at this at the beginning, I
think I thought good, I wasgetting ready to say something.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I'm just yeah, take my game in my head, because no
one else likes it.
I'm winning what it's worth so.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
So, natasha, we're coming sort of towards the end
now.
One of my jobs on the podcastis to keep time, um, so just
remind us that we're sort oflike at, or close to, stopping
time.
Is there anything that you'resat there thinking, oh, they
didn't ask me that one, or I wasexpecting a harder question.
Anything else you want to sortof like get in at the end?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
um, do I have anything else like uh, if not if
.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
If not, let me ask you.
This isn't my closer question,william, I think I've got a
closer question.
It might not work.
I'll explain the closerquestion in a minute, natasha,
but this is just a general.
Interesting.
Do you have a favorite generic?
I'm doing my favorite.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Oh, let's hear yours hovercraft.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
One because before today, when I bothered to do a
little bit of research, I didn'tknow, it was generic um.
And two because, of course,being from portsmouth, I do sort
of come from and still live inan area where there was
commercial hovercraft operatingbetween us and the Isle of Wight
.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So, um, I found, I found that fascinating, so that
is now my favorite generic wordoh nice, I um, I really wish I
went on a hovercraft, um,because I went to university in
Portsmouth and I really, reallywanted to and, uh, the whole
three years I was there, I neverdid it.
So I think you said the wholethree years you was there.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I never did it.
So I think you said the wholethree years you were there.
The weather was too bad and itwas not operating.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I just never got around to trying it, but I
always wanted to.
Um, anyway, that's off topic,but it's quite an experience is
it, yeah, yeah it's.
It's somewhere betweenexhilarating and terrifying I
might have to go back toportsmouth just to try that,
just to do that.
Um, do I have a favorite?
(34:45):
I'm not sure if I have afavorite, but one that always
makes me laugh is when I watchamerican movies or tv shows and
they always say band-aid, that'sit.
When you hurt yourself, oh,let's get a band-aid, you need
say band-aid.
When you hurt yourself, oh,let's get a band-aid.
You need a band-aid for that.
I'm thinking why on earth dothey call it a band-aid?
(35:06):
It's a plaster, that's what wecall it here in the UK.
It's a plaster, but yes.
So I think that's probably theone that sticks out a lot to me.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
So does that mean you can have some things that are
generic in some countries withjurisdictions and not in others?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
oh yeah, absolutely yeah oh yeah, I hadn't
appreciated that yeah, there's,uh, there's, there's quite a few
marks like that um in the us.
It looks like, uh, I mean,generally trademark law, um in
the us is a little bit, a littlebit stricter, even when it
(35:42):
comes to things like maintenanceand that sort of thing.
There's sort of morerequirements to fulfil during
the life of a trademark.
But it looks to me that a lotof marks become generic in the
US but they're still okay andregistered in other territories
(36:02):
in the EU, in the UK and variousother countries.
But in the US it seems that alot of marks become generic
easier, I would say, thanelsewhere.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And it's interesting that you used the Band-Aid
example, because I rememberbeing old enough to remember
Band-Aid, the charityfundraising initiative for
poverty and hunger.
I think I'm thinking.
I don't get it.
Why have they called itBand-Aid?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
That's just, I didn't get the play on words because
we didn't use it in the UK inthe 80s, I guess air fryer
because, let's face it, it'skind of descriptive probably
doesn't become generic in otherlanguages because they're not
going to call it an air fryer.
They're going to translate airfryer into the relevant language
.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Oh, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I'm not sure what that is in French, but I can't
do it because I don't know whatfrying is, I can't remember what
era it is, actually probably.
No, I'm not going to say I haveno idea.
Free to a day, I don't know, Idon't care, move on.
Another bad game, two bad games, one podcast.
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
You're on a roll.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, I'm now thinking of other names,
people's names that then becomerelated to a product and then
become generic, and I'm thinkingBiro.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Well, that's Biro, isn't it?
Yes, yeah, biro is one owned byBic.
Yeah, and we call any sort ofpen like that ballpoint pen Biro
, don't we?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'scertainly one.
And you know, just touching onthat Marvel and DC superhero
(37:45):
issue, that's one that, to behonest, I didn't know was a
registered trademark until thiswhole issue happened, because I
have never I don't think I haveever seen Marvel or DC use it as
if it's a trademark.
I don't think I've ever seenthem do that, because they
(38:07):
always use the names of theirsuperheroes or you know, when
they kind of have like the teams, like the Avengers and that
sort of thing.
You know you can tell thatthat's a trademark and they use
it in that way.
But I had no idea thatsuperhero was a registered
trademark owned by them.
So that was very interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, that was where this started, wasn't it?
And I found that quitesurprising as well, hence my
interest in the article when Isaw it.
So, gwilymum, I'm strugglingfor a closer.
So what we normally do, natasha, is at the end of the podcast
we come up with generally, meoffer, grillum, we'll come up
with some kind of tangentialquestion that sort of relates to
things that we've talked about,um, but takes us down a bit of
(38:52):
a otherwise blind alley or umrabbit hole, or whatever it
might be.
It's such an eclecticdiscussion, william, that I
can't.
I can't think of one.
We've you.
You had you had your game thatseemed to you should have saved
it to the end.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's quite a good one.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, we can play my game again oh good, then one
more round of your game.
Right me first.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You first, though, yeah yeah, tombstone, I reckon I
was a train, a trademark by theUndertaker industry and they
let it go generic.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Oh, I thought you meant the town, no, there you go
.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
That's a classic example.
The name of the town.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Was that Gunfight at the OK Club?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Apparently they named the gravestone after the film.
I'm making a rule up, lee, thisis a rubbish game.
I just don't understand therule.
I think it's say a word is thename of this game.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Any word.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Any word you like.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I've forgotten the rules too.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I remember Podcast, and I'll end it there, gwilym.
So, natasha, now, yeah, I'm noteven going to make Natasha
suffer having to come up withanother one.
It's a rubbish game.
It's now consigned to thepodcasting history of
nothingness, I'm afraid.
So, natasha, thank you so muchfor coming on.
(40:11):
It's been an absolute delight.
Thank you for regaling us withyour amazing game.
I'm now going to go.
There are a few people in thesuper office today.
I'm going to go outside andplay it now.
I think you are.
Yeah, if you're listening tothe podcast, of course you are,
why wouldn't you be?
And you've enjoyed it and youwant to help other people find
out where we are?
(40:31):
Leave us a little review, andthat that makes it easier for
people to find us.
Thank you both We'll see younext time.
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod
and you are listening to apodcast on intellectual property
brought to you by the CharteredInstitute of Patent Attorneys.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Hey, gwilym, how are you, mate?
Not seen you for a little while.
I know how are you, mate, notseeing you for a little while, I
know, uh, how are you?
Yeah, no, I'm really good.
I say I'm really good.
I um, I injured myself playingsquash last week quite badly, um
, and I've been limping, I've,I've torn the I can't ever say
this right the plantar fascia,tendon or ligament or whatever
it is on the base of the footand uh, it's quite painful that
(00:44):
would look like the thing whichfootball springy.
Yes, that's the one yeah, itactually felt so.
When it happened, I was playinga backhand and I lunged forward
with my left foot and it feltlike my arch had collapsed.
It felt like my foot suddenlywent flat to the floor and, uh,
that's agony.
I'm not, not advised, don't doit.
Do you make a distinctive?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
sound when you walk now.
Oh, lee's coming.
It's all, flat foot, lee Ifound the um.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I found the side effect of it.
It's quite interesting.
That's because I'm trying tokeep my heel off the floor when
I'm walking.
I'm now getting a lot of calfpain as well, so it's like, oh
no not good it's not good flipflap, it's flip tippy toe.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that god, I
want to see this anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Can, aside from my um ailments, can I just make a
couple of observations about you?
You've combed your hair no, Ihaven't.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I got my hair cut.
I forget it cuts short even ahaircut.
It just sticks out in the rightdirection, so I'm good never
seen you look that tidy.
You know, I trim my beard everynow and then.
Every six years I'll dosomething.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And why have you got up-wide-down jellyfish floating
above your right ear?
Why haven't you?
Oh yeah, indeed, yeah, I didn'trealise it was part of the
essential podcasting kit.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Can you see me shaking?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
See you shaking.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I've got the shake.
Yes, are you nervous?
No, I'm.
I'm just coming down off aterrifying experience.
I've just taken my first everline bike ride in london.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I've never done it before is that not a not a good
experience?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
it's great line bikes , wonderful thing.
That's my problem solved.
But I cycle in london tons butI've never taken an e-bike
before.
It is nerve-wracking I am.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So I have a thing, a thing about cyclists in london
and I know, I know that allcyclists say.
All cyclists say because I'vespoken to enough of them that
those that go through red lightsand bother pedestrians that are
in the minority, they're not.
It's pretty much every singlecyclist will go through red
lights, regardless of wherepedestrians are.
I despise cyclists and I usedto be one I've decided and I am
(02:47):
one.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
No, it irritates me because I do stop and I'm the
idiot who's not moving.
But what I do love occasionallysomeone will actually say to
you, thank you for stopping, andit is the most validating thing
.
It's really nice let's neverstop this.
It's getting worse, definitelybut, it's quite difficult to
stop an e-bike.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It's terrifying, oh yeah, I've never cycled in
London.
Never want to cycle in London.
It looks terrifying.
Agreed, okay, should we crackon with the show?
Yeah, so we're a little bit outof our comfort zone today,
(03:24):
because normally I mean, I knowwe're a podcast that spans all
of IP, but we do tend togravitate towards patent and
heavy tech stuff, and thenoccasionally we have an
inspiration to get on someone tocome and speak to us about
areas of IP that are, dare I sayit, possibly more interesting
than patents, gwilym, and we'vegot one of those today.
So should we welcome Natasha tothe podcast?
Hey, natasha, how are you?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Hello, I'm good, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
No, it's great to have you on, and this is the
outcome of you and I having alittle bit of a conversation on
LinkedIn.
Isn't it great that the worldworks like that these days?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, yeah, it is yeah.
So first of all, introduceyourself.
Who are you?
What do you do?
So my name is Natasha.
I am a trademark attorney atBaron Warren Redfern.
I work with Jerry Bridge Butler, who I think you've had on the
show a couple of times actually.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
We have had Jerry on a couple of times, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah and yeah, so I work with him in the trademark
team.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And yeah, so I work with him in the trademark team.
Cool Interesting thing aboutJerry.
I sometimes use AI to help medo minutes and Jerry's name was
in a set of minutes I was tryingto do I think it was yesterday
and I can't remember if it wasCopilot or whatever I was using
managed to recognise him as JoeyBridge Builder.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I might start calling him that.
Actually, that's quite, that'sgot a complimentary name though
bridge builder.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, what a great way to gothrough life building bridges.
Anyway, it's um, that's not.
We're not on to talk aboutjerry, even though he seems to
be on podcast more than me andwillem.
So, natasha, this came aboutbecause I think something that
you wrote for sitmar appeared inwas it in sitmar journal and
online about brands that gothrough something called
genericide.
Is that I got that right?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
yes, yeah, that's correct.
So I uh wrote a blog post for umthe sitmar blog um, about
genericide, uh, which isbasically when a trademark or
registered trademark, slowly,over time although for some it
happens quite quickly becomes ageneric term.
(05:33):
As you know, a trademark is asign that companies use to
distinguish their products,their goods and services from
those of others.
So really, you know, it's allabout being distinctive and it's
all about standing out.
But over time, sometimes, whenyour brand is so good and you
(05:55):
become so popular, you run therisk of your trademark becoming
generic.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's when, now, the public start using your
trademark to refer to just thosegoods in general, um, and, and
it's no longer really seen as atrademark that belongs to one
company oh, and so I thinkthey're sort of fairly obvious
ones that most of us know, butyou want to sort of give us some
insight into the, perhaps thehistory and the background of
(06:22):
this yes, well, I mean, there'snot much of a history to it
really it's.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It starts really with just the definition of a
trademark.
Uh, one of the essentialfunctions of a trademark, as I
said before, is to to allow abusiness to distinguish itself
from others, um, and kind ofshow the origin of their
products, so.
So if it can't do that, thenessentially it can't perform
that essential function of atrademark.
(06:50):
So, you know, instead of nowbeing that mark that companies,
the public, use to kind of referto your business, it's now just
that generic word and that canhappen to anyone at any time.
And there's marks that havetrademarks that have kind of
become generic as far back asthe 1920s.
(07:12):
And then there's this, you knowthe same problem happening to
trademarks today, this year,last year is it?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
is it a bad thing?
Is it a good thing?
Is it indifferent?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I think from a trademark perspective it is a
bad thing really.
Um, you want to be successful,you want everybody to know your
brand, you know.
But really it's kind of adisadvantage of being too
successful and too well known,because the line starts to blur
a little bit you, when you're nolonger a brand and people think
(07:45):
actually your brand is just aproduct.
So you've kind of lost thattrademark.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Really, I was quite fascinated by the trampoline one
, because, I mean, I didn't knowthat it was known as the
rebound tumbler back in the 30sand then, obviously, over time,
trampoline became generic yesyeah, so otherwise, yeah, it
(08:12):
doesn't make the same, does itasking the kids if they'd like
to have a rebound tumbler in thegarden?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
no, it doesn't.
It doesn't sound as fun.
Um, there's, there's a lot ofmarks that that that's to.
And you know, when I waswriting this blog post and I was
having a look at some examples,I was really surprised at some
of the ones that I came acrossthat were actually registered
trademarks before.
Heroin was actually one of them, and yeah, and that really
(08:43):
surprised me.
Yes, yeah, of them.
Um, and yeah, and that reallysurprised me.
Yes, yeah, heroin used to be,um, a trademark owned by Bayer.
Um, for a kid like why yeah,well, a morphine alternative is
what the actual product was um,and that became generic as early
as 1919, actually, wow.
(09:05):
So, yeah, I mean, you know,nowadays you would never think
that comes from one particularsource or it's a product really
like that, but it once was, andone that kind of came and went
really quickly was Airfryer.
So Airfryer is, yeah, it's aregistered trademark, owned by
(09:30):
yeah, owned by phillips, but um,in the in the us now it's
considered generic um, becausethere's lots of different brands
that make air fryers um, but Iguess I guess that one makes a
wee bit of sense, because that'squite descriptive, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
that's you know, and it, and that's not just a
trademark, that is actually whatit does.
It fries using air.
So I can, I can understand howthat happened, but things like
hoover, um, so hoover doesn't inany way, shape or form in its
original sense, suggest thathere is a device that kind of
sucks up dirt through theprocess of a vacuum or whatever
it, whatever it might be, um,and yet it became generic and
(10:08):
that that makes less sense to me.
Why did that, you know?
Why did we come to recognizeanything that cleaned carpets as
a hoover?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
yeah, that's it.
I mean that's, that's theperfect example of actually
becoming too well known, like sowell known and so recognized
just for you.
You know, for for that productthat people will always just say
, oh, just you know, I'm justgonna hoover, I'm just gonna
hoover the carpet, or I'm gonnagrab the hoover, or I'm gonna
(10:36):
hoover the carpet with my dyson.
So, yeah, that that's a perfectexample of that happening.
And you know a lot of companiesthey try, they really try, to
say this is a registeredtrademark, these are Hoover
(10:57):
vacuum cleaners, and there'slots of different ways they can
try to still kind of maintainthe mark and try to say, well,
no, this is the brand, it's notthe product, and they'll keep
trying to do that.
But it's really hard to controlthings like that really.
I mean, once it's with thepublic, they're going to refer
(11:18):
to these things how they want to.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, I guess the public aren't great respecters
of brand and IP in that sense,are they?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
no, no, and it's.
It's always, you know, to dowith, I think, how language kind
of um develops as well and andhow people talk um it.
That is a very difficult thingto try for businesses to try to
control anyway.
Um, just even with things likeslang and how people want to
refer to stuff, once it's outthere, it's not so much in their
(11:50):
control anymore and the publicwill call it whatever they want
to.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
The brand creators must just be gleeful that they
came up with a word that was sogood that it became the word for
the thing, like Hoover, whichis used.
You know, I'm going to Hooverit up.
That's much more.
You know, he just Hoovered hismeal up.
It's become a really clearmeaning word and I'm sure the
brand people you know, I'mguessing, are all frustrated
poets anyway, I think, and I'veliterally added to the, I've
(12:18):
literally added to the English,whatever language.
What a fantastic surprise.
The lawyers, on the other hand,obviously are thinking oh, what
have you done?
Your word's too good.
Does that mean that brandcreators should come up with a
not quite so good brand?
Would that be your advice tosomebody?
That's too good, that's goingto go generic, that word's too
good, come up with a worse word.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I came up with the worst word.
I mean, it's really difficultto tell what's going to be too
good, uh, at the beginning.
Uh, because you come up withsomething.
It's so distinctive, it'sbrilliant, like hoover, it's
very distinctive, um, googlevery distinctive, but, um, you
know, there's no way to reallytell oh, this is just so good
that it's going to be bad for us.
It's all to do with the successof the business and how that
(13:01):
mark and how that brand kind ofcatches on, how much the public
really like it and kind of thedifferent ways that you can play
with it as well.
Really.
So you know, it's hard to kindof tell what's going to be a bad
trademark, as in what's got thepotential to become generic,
(13:23):
because, like with the air fryersituation, it can happen very
quickly, but, like with some ofthe other brands, some of the
older brands, it takes time.
It takes time for the companyto kind of grow and get bigger.
The brand gets bigger andbigger and then it's just one of
those things that happen justbecome too big for your own good
.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Really it also, I guess, be a function of
exclusivity.
Um, yeah, you're the onlypeople maybe because your patent
portfolio, the only people whocan actually make this product
and therefore there's only one.
So again you think, oh, I'venailed this, I've got a really
good name and I've got, I'm theonly person who can make this
product.
But it might be that almostinevitably in those
circumstances you end up with ageneric trademark, because it's
(14:05):
the only word for the thing,because no one else makes it
yeah, exactly, exactly that.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I mean that that's a very unfortunate situation to be
in what initially kind of lookslike a great situation.
You've got this fantastic brandand great trademark and you've
got a patent, so you're the onlyone that can kind of do it.
But then you know what, whenyour brand becomes generic but
then you're the only one thatcan do it and it's difficult
(14:30):
because you you can try to kindof balance that, you can try to
control that, but I guess if youhave, if you have the pattern,
then you can continue to be theonly one doing it.
So that brings in a little bitof balance.
Um, because then the otherpeople can't make the actual
product for a while you gotpatterns in, I got patterns in
(14:53):
lee.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I managed it.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I got patterns yeah, I knew, I knew you'd manage it
somehow um another.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So as you know you, so you imagine.
One is one, one's got a greatbrand and suddenly one's seeing
it being used online and thepapers on tv in a generic way.
What can?
Is anything you can do about itis is it too late?
Speaker 1 (15:12):
um, I mean there's, there is stuff that you can, you
can do to try to manage thesituation.
I think if you kind of see itcoming, there's some things that
you can do.
I would always say forbusinesses just kind of be ahead
of it Before that's apossibility, try to get
(15:34):
everything in place and try tokind of use your mark in a way
that you know in the bestpossible way for it to not
become generic, so you can pairyour trademark with a generic
word.
So I always say, like Lego,lego is the brand, but if you
just call them Legos, then youknow you're kind of allowing,
(15:59):
allowing room for it to maybebecome generic.
But if you say Lego blocks,then you're talking about the
blocks, but you've made it clearthat Lego is your brand and
also you can have lots ofdifferent products under the
same brand and that actuallymakes it a little bit harder for
the public to then use yourbrand to refer to one type of
(16:22):
product makes sense so, uh, withvaseline, for example, you can
have vaseline petroleum jelly,you can have vaseline body
lotion, you can have vaselinehand cream.
So when someone says you need toget some vaseline, well what?
Which one?
Which product um?
(16:43):
yeah although I do think thatone's on the on the brink a
little bit, because when peoplesay vaseline, everyone naturally
thinks of the petroleum jelly.
Yeah, that that's.
That's something you can do.
Um, you just have to stayvigilant as well.
Really, keep an eye out, youknow.
If you see anybody sort of usingit generically, even if it's
(17:09):
referred to in like an articleor in the press or in any way,
you know, you should try tocorrect it, try to educate the
public that actually this is atrademark, this is the brand.
You can use the registeredtrademark symbol as well, right
next to the right, next to thetrademark, to show that actually
this is the trademark,especially if you are using it
(17:30):
with the generic word next to it.
So lego registered trademarksymbol in the top right hand
corner and then blocks.
You can have the trademarksymbol in the top right-hand
corner and then blocks.
You can have the trademark in amore distinctive kind of bold
font.
There's lots of different waysthat you can make that trademark
stand out.
And also, if you're licensingthe mark as well, you need to
(17:53):
make sure that your licenseesare using it in the same way.
So things like brand guidelinesand trademark use guidelines
are very helpful so that it'snot just you.
Anyone else who's affiliatedwith your mark or using your
mark hopefully with yourpermission is doing the same
thing.
There's examples of quite a fewcompanies actually that do that
(18:17):
well.
Examples of quite a fewcompanies actually that do that
well.
Google actually have a brandresource page which has the do's
and don'ts when it comes totrademark use.
So how to use the mark, how tokind of say, google search
engine and not looking it up onGoogle or Googling it, which I
(18:38):
think we all do.
We all say, oh, just Google it,and then people go and Google
stuff on Bing.
So it's, you know, you can try.
But again it goes back to thatpoint of very difficult to
control the public.
Biscoff, lotus, biscoff have areally good trademark use
(19:00):
guidelines page and that advisespeople, especially those using
Biscoff products in theirrecipes and things like that.
It kind of advises them how touse it when you're advertising
these products.
So things like when it comes tonaming these products that
contain Biscoff products, how tocommunicate that on menus,
(19:24):
communicate that in stores, andeven photography you know how
you shouldn't really layer thebrand or the mark over photos,
that kind of thing.
So a lot of companies aretrying to do things like that.
But I mean's, these are notabsolute solutions.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You just kind of had to hope it's enough so you give
it a go and you know you, youcommunicate um.
How does it come off theregister?
Who decides it is generic?
Did the, did the police getinvolved at this stage and come
along and say I'm sorry, you'vebecome generic, we're taking you
off the register does?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
the trademark police, the police.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
They've got hats with a big r on, so amazing sight
when they come for you.
Um no, do they?
Okay, not, probably not thepolice, but you know does.
Does somebody else who doesn'twant you to have the trademark
anymore?
What's the call?
Their a vacuum cleaner or ahoover?
Come along?
Or does the comptroller of thepatent office decide it's gone
generic?
How does it come off?
How does it become legallygeneric?
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Well, this is actually quite funny because a
lot of generic trademarks canjust sit on the register.
They can just sit on theregister for a while until
somebody decides to do somethingabout it.
Certainly in the UK somebodywill have to come along and
apply to revoke that mark andthe grounds for doing that would
(20:52):
have to be that it's now becomegeneric, and then again it goes
back to not being able tofunction as a trademark.
If it's generic, it can't be atrademark.
It might not have been when itwas filed and registered and for
however many years it was beingused.
But if anybody at all wants tocome along and have your mark
(21:14):
revoked on those grounds andthey can apply to do so, and and
then it eventually will be aregistry decision.
Actually, is it generic?
Um, you know, you can.
You can say, well, we've donethis, it's not.
We've done this, we've.
We've done all of these thingsand taken all of these measures
to make sure that our mark is atrademark and the public knows
that it's a trademark.
Um, but yeah, the registry.
(21:38):
If they decide that actually isgeneric, then they can be
revoked for that reason is itdespite?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
yeah, you could make the best efforts in the world,
but it doesn't matter if ithasn't.
It's the outcome of the counts,not the effort.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Okay yeah, exactly that.
Yeah, and and that's.
That's happened.
Um, that's happened to to a lotof trademarks as well.
Um, you know, you think you'reusing it as a trademark, but
sometimes what you're doing justmight not be enough to educate
the public and create that kindof impression that this is a
(22:11):
brand, this is not a product,this is a brand.
If you haven't done that, then,yeah, you do run that risk.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
This is a question to Lee Lee.
Do you remember Rollerblades?
I remember Roll that.
Then, yeah, you do run thatrisk.
This is a question to Lee Lee.
Do you remember rollerblades?
I remember rollerblades.
Yeah, they're not rollerblades,they're inline skates.
How dare you?
Of course they are.
Of course they are.
Yeah, when I started, one of mypartner's job was to get press
cuttings back in the day.
It was press cuttings and hehad the I'll look at it a few
times because I'm sure it'sstill a very strong trademark
but he had the exhausting job ofevery time.
(22:39):
It was a big fad at the timeand every time somebody said
rollerblades he sent a lettersaying I think you'll find
they're actually calledrollerblading line skates and I
think it was the most awful,awful patch of his career.
I think it was never ending.
I don't actually know how thatone panned out, but that was his
job for a long time.
Next is a stock letterRollerblade inline skate.
(23:00):
Nobody's going to call themrollerblade inline skate.
No one's going to say anybodyfancy going out to do some
trampoline rebound tumbling.
It's just like you say, lee.
It's really difficult in thereal world, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Or hey, I need to wrap some presents.
Has anyone got a transparent,cellulose based, pressure
sensitive adhesive tape, thingshe memorizes?
Uh, yeah, no, no, I've gotwikipedia open at the moment.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Other online, other online resources for checking
things like this are obviouslyavailable yeah, or anybody on
the morphine based product thatmakes you a bit dreamy, yeah and
so one of the questions andthis may be, may be something
that isn't within your area ofsort of expertise, natasha,
sorry about that.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I was wondering, in sort of thinking about coming on
the podcast is this, is itsomething that's peculiar to
English language, or does thishappen in sort of like with all
languages?
Is this sort of taking a brandand making it shorthand for
something Is that common justacross the world?
Sort of take taking a brand andmaking it shorthand for
something.
Is that common just across theworld.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Um well, I'm not.
I'm not entirely sure about inother languages, but I can
imagine it being the case, Imean yeah with um.
You know most, most countries inthe world with you know, with
english a lot, a lot of thesetrademarks are not just uk or us
or um eu trademarks.
(24:24):
They're international um marks.
So some, some of these markshave actually become generic in
a lot of countries where theyspeak lots of different
languages as well.
So I'm not entirely sure how itwould work in other languages.
I can imagine it being the same, but certainly English words
(24:47):
that were once trademarks andhave become generic, it kind of
does have the same effect inother countries as well.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And it didn't seem to me, looking at a long list of
former trademarks that have beengenericised.
That's the header of theWikipedia page, if anyone really
wants to look it up.
It didn't seem to me, lookingat a long list of former
trademarks that have beengenericised.
That's the header of theWikipedia page, if anyone really
wants to look it up.
It didn't seem to me that therewas a distinction between words
that were fairly obvious, likeair fryer I mean, that's as I
say, that's describing what'shappening as much as a brand and
words that are in no way shapeor form related to actually what
(25:17):
the product is, that are in noway shape or form related to
actually what the product is,like I don't know, like maybe
Escalator or something else.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It seems entirely random whether something becomes
generic or not.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I thinkyou're right.
It's the way the public pick itup and how they choose to use
it Once it's out there.
That's it really, isn't it?
I mean, one of the ones that Ifound really interesting.
It's not actually, it's still aregistered trademark, but it's
(25:47):
quite generic still is Onesie.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
That was just a silly word.
You know, know you, youwouldn't, you wouldn't think
that at all.
Um, it's still a registeredtrademark, but, um, it's owned
by a company called gerberchildren's wear, and um, they
refer to it as adult body suitsor whatever children's body
(26:17):
suits or whatever.
But um, you know anyone thatbuys that sort of product.
You call it a onesie, no matterwhere you get it from.
Um, and then there are otherones that are so obvious, like
you said, like the air fryer one.
Um, I've come across some ofthese recently and I'm really
surprised as well.
The cash point.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Cash point is an actual trademark, um, for I'm
getting so many, so many pubfacts.
I mean I'm gonna win the nextpub conversation.
I've got everything heroin cashpoint onesie.
I'm all over this.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
This is brilliant yeah, I was really, really
surprised by some of I think youprobably know the ones like
Post-it for sticky notes andRizzler for rolling papers, but
some of these ones, they reallycaught me off guard when I came
(27:15):
across them Addictophone as well.
Addictophone is a trademarkthat belongs to a company called
Nuance Communications.
They're part of Microsoft, Ibelieve.
But I mean, I would thinkAddictophone is just any product
like that.
I would call that Addictophone.
(27:36):
You know, even when you'reaware of these kind of issues,
you can't help it.
That's just how we are.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
That's how we speak.
I love Jacuzzi, because I thinkall of us you say the word
Jacuzzi.
You know exactly what it is,don't you?
It's a whirlpool bath, soyou've gone there.
So that's not just a brand or atrademark, that's become
generic, but that's someone'sname.
So I think that was the italianinventor.
Was um mr jacuzzi?
I don't know his first name, soI should have written that down
(28:05):
something, shouldn't I?
And um?
So it's gone from his name tothe name of something he
invented and then to somethingthat's genetic, that's, that's,
that's quite amazing.
So he lives.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So he lives forever now in the world war buff I was
like I was interested in wi-fi,which is, I think, kind of the
opposite, because I every nowand I think, why is it called
wi-fi?
And then you think it makes nosense at all because it sounds
like hi-fi, which was obviouslyshort for high fidelity, but
wi-fi isn't short for some white, white fidelity or something.
(28:35):
It doesn't actually meananything, but I think it seems
to be the opposite of atrademark, because it seems to
have been designed to becomegeneric.
So that's an interesting thingas well is that that's maybe one
of the few successes wheresomebody actually wanted
something to be generic from dayone and succeeded, because I
think there must be also ahistory of people trying to come
up with words they reallythought would catch on and
they're being reallydisappointed when they didn't.
(29:00):
But that's a different articlethat you haven't written.
So I'm not, we're not going totest you on that, don't worry.
It's actually more difficult,but I think it's.
It is the branding people.
It must be a struggle.
I'd be chuffed, wouldn't you,lee, if you came up with a word
and the whole world used.
It'd be great, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
so you know, I, I think I would, but I can I also
get some sort of sense that ifyou do that for the purposes of
identifying yourself with aparticular brand or product, I
get the fact that it could beproblematic as well, but I think
, yeah, the, the egotist withinme would quite like that I've
got a quick game I've justthought of oh go on then am I
(29:36):
gonna like this?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
words that might be trademarks, but I don't know
right.
So mine, I've just thought ofit.
Now, flip-flop, I've no idea.
Is that a trademark or not?
It's a rubbish game, there's noanswer.
But I reckon flip-flop shouldbe a generic trademark, but I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It might be, I'm not sure about that one, but
flip-phone certainly used to beowned by Motorola.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
That's not a trademark, that's just the name
of a thing.
What's yours, lee?
Speaker 3 (30:07):
so I was, um, I was thinking about Bluetooth,
because I know the origins ofBluetooth, I know it's Nordic.
Isn't it this invention?
And it was?
Wasn't it a king, uh kind ofViking king, uh, in this
invention?
And it was?
Wasn't it a king, uh kind ofviking king, uh, the albert
bluetooth or some, some suchperson?
And I don't know, then, why thekind of connection methodology
(30:28):
device, whatever it is came tobe named after such a person.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
But yeah, so I've no, I've no idea whether it's
generic feels like it feels likeit is carrying onairing with
this completely pointless gamebecause we don't know the
answers.
Microwave I wonder if that wasa trademark that became generic.
It's a great game We've gotlike all day.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Poor Natasha's looking entirely stupid.
Gwilym has invented a game onthe hoof that is.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'm quite enjoying it .
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So how do you win who ?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
wins's not a game, is it?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
it's just silly um, oh, do you know what?
This is the ip version ofmornington crescent.
That would rather mean.
That would rather meansomething to you or not?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
obviously, this is my number I never get, yeah, I
never get invited.
By the way, can you tell?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
well, they'll invite you now with all your facts.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah so what's the?
If so, if someone is startingout on the long road to um, to
taking a product to market, what, what's the golden?
Is there any golden rule aroundbrand name that someone could
follow to try and not findthemselves in this position?
Or is it just a game of chance,like Gwilym's game he made up?
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Very similar to Gwilym's game actually.
No well, I mean, I think youcan stay on the right lines with
kind of coming up with a newtrademark.
Up with a new trademark whichis distinctive and brilliant and
probably might look like it'llcatch on and become well-known.
(32:07):
But, as I was saying before,it's really hard to avoid this.
This is more to do with thesuccess of the product or the
company rather than the workbehind picking them up, or the
company rather than the workbehind picking them up, because
really it's to do with howpopular you become or how
well-known you are, and thenthat's what has the effect on
(32:30):
the mark.
Really, it's really difficultto then pick a trademark and
kind of bear this in mind whenyou probably don't even know
where your business is going togo, really.
So it's hard to kind of uh,look at this at the beginning, I
think I thought good, I wasgetting ready to say something.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I'm just yeah, take my game in my head, because no
one else likes it.
I'm winning what it's worth so.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
So, natasha, we're coming sort of towards the end
now.
One of my jobs on the podcastis to keep time, um, so just
remind us that we're sort oflike at, or close to, stopping
time.
Is there anything that you'resat there thinking, oh, they
didn't ask me that one, or I wasexpecting a harder question.
Anything else you want to sortof like get in at the end?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
um, do I have anything else like uh, if not if
.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
If not, let me ask you.
This isn't my closer question,william, I think I've got a
closer question.
It might not work.
I'll explain the closerquestion in a minute, natasha,
but this is just a general.
Interesting.
Do you have a favorite generic?
I'm doing my favorite.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Oh, let's hear yours hovercraft.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
One because before today, when I bothered to do a
little bit of research, I didn'tknow, it was generic um.
And two because, of course,being from portsmouth, I do sort
of come from and still live inan area where there was
commercial hovercraft operatingbetween us and the Isle of Wight
.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So, um, I found, I found that fascinating, so that
is now my favorite generic wordoh nice, I um, I really wish I
went on a hovercraft, um,because I went to university in
Portsmouth and I really, reallywanted to and, uh, the whole
three years I was there, I neverdid it.
So I think you said the wholethree years you was there.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I never did it.
So I think you said the wholethree years you were there.
The weather was too bad and itwas not operating.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I just never got around to trying it, but I
always wanted to.
Um, anyway, that's off topic,but it's quite an experience is
it, yeah, yeah it's.
It's somewhere betweenexhilarating and terrifying I
might have to go back toportsmouth just to try that,
just to do that.
Um, do I have a favorite?
(34:45):
I'm not sure if I have afavorite, but one that always
makes me laugh is when I watchamerican movies or tv shows and
they always say band-aid, that'sit.
When you hurt yourself, oh,let's get a band-aid, you need
say band-aid.
When you hurt yourself, oh,let's get a band-aid.
You need a band-aid for that.
I'm thinking why on earth dothey call it a band-aid?
(35:06):
It's a plaster, that's what wecall it here in the UK.
It's a plaster, but yes.
So I think that's probably theone that sticks out a lot to me.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
So does that mean you can have some things that are
generic in some countries withjurisdictions and not in others?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
oh yeah, absolutely yeah oh yeah, I hadn't
appreciated that yeah, there's,uh, there's, there's quite a few
marks like that um in the us.
It looks like, uh, I mean,generally trademark law, um in
the us is a little bit, a littlebit stricter, even when it
(35:42):
comes to things like maintenanceand that sort of thing.
There's sort of morerequirements to fulfil during
the life of a trademark.
But it looks to me that a lotof marks become generic in the
US but they're still okay andregistered in other territories
(36:02):
in the EU, in the UK and variousother countries.
But in the US it seems that alot of marks become generic
easier, I would say, thanelsewhere.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
And it's interesting that you used the Band-Aid
example, because I rememberbeing old enough to remember
Band-Aid, the charityfundraising initiative for
poverty and hunger.
I think I'm thinking.
I don't get it.
Why have they called itBand-Aid?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
That's just, I didn't get the play on words because
we didn't use it in the UK inthe 80s, I guess air fryer
because, let's face it, it'skind of descriptive probably
doesn't become generic in otherlanguages because they're not
going to call it an air fryer.
They're going to translate airfryer into the relevant language
.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Oh, okay, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I'm not sure what that is in French, but I can't
do it because I don't know whatfrying is, I can't remember what
era it is, actually probably.
No, I'm not going to say I haveno idea.
Free to a day, I don't know, Idon't care, move on.
Another bad game, two bad games, one podcast.
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
You're on a roll.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Yeah, I'm now thinking of other names,
people's names that then becomerelated to a product and then
become generic, and I'm thinkingBiro.
That's true.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Well, that's Biro, isn't it?
Yes, yeah, biro is one owned byBic.
Yeah, and we call any sort ofpen like that ballpoint pen Biro
, don't we?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'scertainly one.
And you know, just touching onthat Marvel and DC superhero
(37:45):
issue, that's one that, to behonest, I didn't know was a
registered trademark until thiswhole issue happened, because I
have never I don't think I haveever seen Marvel or DC use it as
if it's a trademark.
I don't think I've ever seenthem do that, because they
(38:07):
always use the names of theirsuperheroes or you know, when
they kind of have like the teams, like the Avengers and that
sort of thing.
You know you can tell thatthat's a trademark and they use
it in that way.
But I had no idea thatsuperhero was a registered
trademark owned by them.
So that was very interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, that was where this started, wasn't it?
And I found that quitesurprising as well, hence my
interest in the article when Isaw it.
So, gwilymum, I'm strugglingfor a closer.
So what we normally do, natasha, is at the end of the podcast
we come up with generally, meoffer, grillum, we'll come up
with some kind of tangentialquestion that sort of relates to
things that we've talked about,um, but takes us down a bit of
(38:52):
a otherwise blind alley or umrabbit hole, or whatever it
might be.
It's such an eclecticdiscussion, william, that I
can't.
I can't think of one.
We've you.
You had you had your game thatseemed to you should have saved
it to the end.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's quite a good one.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, we can play my game again oh good, then one
more round of your game.
Right me first.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
You first, though, yeah yeah, tombstone, I reckon I
was a train, a trademark by theUndertaker industry and they
let it go generic.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Oh, I thought you meant the town, no, there you go
.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
That's a classic example.
The name of the town.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Was that Gunfight at the OK Club?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Apparently they named the gravestone after the film.
I'm making a rule up, lee, thisis a rubbish game.
I just don't understand therule.
I think it's say a word is thename of this game.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Any word.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Any word you like.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I've forgotten the rules too.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
I remember Podcast, and I'll end it there, gwilym.
So, natasha, now, yeah, I'm noteven going to make Natasha
suffer having to come up withanother one.
It's a rubbish game.
It's now consigned to thepodcasting history of
nothingness, I'm afraid.
So, natasha, thank you so muchfor coming on.
(40:11):
It's been an absolute delight.
Thank you for regaling us withyour amazing game.
I'm now going to go.
There are a few people in thesuper office today.
I'm going to go outside andplay it now.
I think you are.
Yeah, if you're listening tothe podcast, of course you are,
why wouldn't you be?
And you've enjoyed it and youwant to help other people find
out where we are?
(40:31):
Leave us a little review, andthat that makes it easier for
people to find us.
Thank you both We'll see younext time.
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