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From: glenn@scooptram.utcs.utoronto.ca (Glenn Mackintosh)
Subject: Re: Are you sure UNIX is a trade mark?
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References: <farrow.716074432@fido.Colorado.EDU> <18ns8rINNd81@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Sep11.084516.16908@infodev.cam.ac.uk> <1992Sep11.123540.19263@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>
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Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 23:39:09 GMT
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In <1992Sep11.123540.19263@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> greg@gallifrey.ucs.uoknor.edu (Greg Trotter) writes:
>Asprin and Lineoleum were once brand names. But common usage (that's us,
>dude) dictated that the brands had become generic. Specifically, in the
>case of Aspirin, there were other companies selling the drug (under the
>name (I hope I spell this right) acetacylic pain releiver), but only
>the trademark holder, Bayer, could use the name Asprin. Eventually,
>someone else used the name Asprin. Bayer sued, and *lost* because they
>had not taken appropriate steps to express Asprin as a brand name instead
>of just a plain ol' noun.
>Greg Trotter -- Norman, Oklahoma
>greg@gallifrey.ucs.uoknor.edu
I don't know about Linoleum but you're mistaken about what happened with
Asprin. I just read this in a trivia bit in the Toronto Star newspaper the
other day. I tried to dig it up just now and couldn't find it, however I can
give you the gist of the story. Basically, before the second world war Asprin
was a trademark of a German company called something Bayer or Bayer something
(it could be A.G. Bayer as you say in your article but it doesn't sound like
the name I don't remember :-). Anyway, after the war the allies for some
reason, the article didn't say why, demanded that the trademark be released
as part of Germany's war reparations. In some countries Bayer later
successfully challenged this and regained the trademark status but failed in
others. For example, the trademark is apparently good in Canada but not in
the U.S.
You could be part right, that in the U.S. they may have lost the suit to
reclaim the trademark because it had become "a plain ol' noun" during the
period that the trademark had been relinquished. However, I doubt that this
example is a particularly good precedent. The Linoleum example may be more
relevant but I don't know anything about it so I can't say.
Glenn Mackintosh
University of Toronto
INTERNET: glenn@onet.on.ca, UUCP: uunet!utcs!glenn, BITNET: glenn@utorgpu