IANAL but Karaoke has been trademarked in different decades in different countries. Most of those trademarks are considered "Abandoned" according to the few dat

IANAL but Karaoke has been trademarked in different decades in different countries. Most of those trademarks are considered "Abandoned" according to the few databases I skimmed in a brief search, but that covered only a couple of countries. I think most US courts would see "karaoke" as a generic word today, but I don't know about courts outside of the US, and Karaoke is still seen as a part of the "trade dress" of a couple specific US corporations even if they can't entirely protect that trademark, they are still allowed to fight for it. At least a couple seem to still exist primarily as trolls for lawsuits today. According to the toy aisle of US stores, "Sing" (and "Sing Along") is the only real generic English term in use, and very few (no?) current toys use the word "Karaoke", so I'm guessing those trolls are still winning in the US, for now. (Again, I don't know about the rest of the world, and toy branding is an anecdotal source at best, but still an interesting proxy view in how much large companies assume they will be sued.)