From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Losing a trademark

Losing a trademark

From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property

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Losing a trademark

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- Losing a trademark. Trademark rights can go away over time. You can lose rights by abandonment, that means you stopped using the mark without the intent to resume use, and you can lose rights if your mark becomes generic. Now, imagine a situation where a trademark loses distinctiveness. In many cases, in the history of America, there have been product names that once were brand names. And because they were so widely used by consumers to describe the product, no matter what the product source was, it became generic. It lost its distinctiveness. We actually have a name for it. It's called genericide. So you could lose trademark rights if your product is wildly successful, so successful that people stop referring to you as the source and refer to your product name for everybody's use. If anyone's ever used an adjustable wrench, as a child, I grew up calling this a crescent wrench. Well, that's what the generic name for an adjustable wrench is now. But once upon a time, that was a…

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