3 ms·
> Why do we care how much time, effort, or money was spent to brand a generic term? That's not useful to the people. Isn't it? If you told someone you got food
by msbarnett 15y ago
> Why do we care how much time, effort, or money was spent to brand a generic term? That's not useful to the people.
Isn't it? If you told someone you got food poisoning from the All Bran at the free breakfast at Holiday Inn while representing Network Solutions at a conference on Windows development, are you really asserting that people wouldn't be able to recognize the brands involved despite the generically descriptive trademarks?
- wnight 15y agoIt'd be wonderful if those weren't trademarks. What if someone asks my to get them an all-bran cereal, then bring it to their holiday inn, the Hilton Beachside, for breakfast before a conference discussing network solutions, where we pitch CRM technology to window developers who make transparent building panels? Mightn't I get confused by all those stupid companies who term-squat on otherwise useful parts of our language? Trademark law pays off well when we allow for names like 'Google'; it's new (not stepping on existing terms or usage) and thus also unique. But names like Network Solutions are actively harmful. They do cause some confusion. In fact, a low-level imperceptible bias is what they're counting on. Trademark law would lose 92.4% of its complexity (and burden to society) if we simply stopped allowing generic terms or combinations of generic terms.