atw: Re: BlackBerry devices? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Howard.Silcock@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
But I can't resist wondering how we got ourselves into this ridiculous situation, where we're under threat from lawyers for using ordinary language - makes we want to see if I can get a trademark on the word "the".
And what purpose does this bullying serve? Janice gave a good explanation of how it works, but I still can't see what good these ridiculous measures can achieve for those companies. I'd have thought that a company whose product's name had become a household word would get more benefit than disadvantage from that - but they aren't satisfied with that. 



In that case, I guess I didn't explain it well enough :->
Having your product name be a household word is indeed a
good thing, but only if everyone is aware that it's a specific
brand. If it becomes a popular generic household word, then
people don't perceive your brand as being any different than
any other brand and you've lost your advantage.

For example, there's a brand of refrigerator in the US called
"Frigidaire." It was one of the earliest refrigerators
manufactured and in certain regions of the US, people refer
to refrigerators in general as "frigidaires." But just
because everyone knows the name "Frigidaire" doesn't help
the manufacturer sell more. If people need a new refrigerator,
they're not going to look for the Frigidaire brand -- they
might not even know that there *is* a Frigidaire brand.
They're just going to look at general refrigerators.

Crporations want their brand to stand out as the best named
product of a generic thing, not as the thing itself.

-- Janice

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