4 ms·
Company name vs product name
by block_dagger 3y ago
Company name vs product name
- eru 3y agoIn this example, the company is called Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. BMW is one of their trademarks. See also how there's a company named 'Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG' with a brand called 'Porsche'. But nowadays that company is just a subsidiary of Volkswagen, and they could restructure to make the Porsche AG disappear, without doing any changes to the brand.
- ben_w 3y ago> Volkswagen Also, this is literally "people's car".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 3y agoAnd BMW is literally "Bavarian motor works". It's fun to know, but so what?
- ben_w 3y agoThey are examples of mundane descriptions which are, in fact, trademarks.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoBut they're not examples of mundane descriptions. BMW is much closer than Volkswagen is -- I doubt anyone has ever actually referred to a car as being "a car of the people" -- but "Bavarian motor works" is not a phrase that you'd expect anyone to use descriptively unless there was an appropriate referent, a set of car factories in Bavaria whose company affiliation was obscure or irrelevant. (Perhaps because there are many of them affiliated with different companies, but we're talking about things they have in common such as a demand for steel or technicians.) Had that been the case, and had the phrase been in common use, it would have been impossible to trademark "Bavarian Motor Works" to refer to part of the Bavarian motor works. But reality is different.
- littlestymaar 3y agoAren't M&M's a product name?