Apologies for making you eat those words BoD, but: walkman. Not in the US, but in various other countries, walkman has been ruled 'generic'. Eventhough the name itself is by no means generic; (something like 'MusicPlayer' or even 'Apple' when you sell fruit instead of computers - those are generic for the duh factor). The reason they've been deemed generic is because, yes, people have been using them to refer to any kind of music player, from any brand.
The way to prevent this from happening is to at the very least sue people who use the name in a fashion that isn't intended by the trademark. That way you prevent it, or if you don't, you can make a good show in front of a judge that you've done your best. See: http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=103 Javoxx / JavaPolis is a belgian thing. Here in europe, it's easier to lose your trademark - probably because you can't just give a sack of money to some politician and make it go away. Nothing to do with moral standing, it's just that there's enough animosity between countries that you'd have to give a sack of money to all of them. Some other examples can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks On Sep 17, 11:30 am, BoD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > kirk wrote: > > Java is trademarked. [...] > > they have to aggressively defend it. If they do not protect the > > trademark, they will lose it. > > I keep hearing this argument, but to what extend is it really true? > Does anybody know of any comparable trademark that was really "taken > away" (and by who?) because they didn't sue enough people? > And just how hard do you have to protect it? Do you have to sue 1, 10, > or 100 people to prove that you really protected your trademark and > therefore it is yours? > > I mean come on... > > BoD --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
