What do aspirin, a thermos, and a zipper have in common? Beyond being everyday household items, they share a peculiar and cautionary history. They were all once exclusive, legally protected trademarks. Today, they are common nouns, free for anyone to use. They are casualties of a fascinating linguistic and legal phenomenon known as “genericide”—the death of a brand name by its own overwhelming popularity.
This is the story of how words born in a marketing department escape into the wild and become so ingrained in our vocabulary that they lose their commercial shackles. It’s a high-stakes battleground where marketing genius, the power of public habit, and the strict rules of language law collide.
For any company, having your brand name become a household word seems like the ultimate marketing goal. But there’s a treacherous line between being famous and being generic. A trademark is a word, phrase, or symbol that identifies the source of a product and distinguishes it from others. It’s a company’s legal claim to a name. When that name becomes the common term for the product category itself, the trademark is at risk of being legally nullified.
Losing a trademark is a devastating blow. It means competitors can start selling their own “thermoses” or “aspirins”, capitalizing on the brand recognition you spent millions building. The unique identity of the original product dissolves into a generic category, and a priceless asset is lost forever.
The list of former trademarks that now populate our dictionaries is long and surprisingly varied. Each tells a story of innovation and unintended linguistic consequences.
Perhaps the most famous example, “Aspirin” was originally trademarked by the German company Bayer in 1899 for its acetylsalicylic acid formula. The name was a smash hit. However, after Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Treaty of Versailles forced Bayer to give up its trademark in the U.S., U.K., and France as part of war reparations. By then, the word “aspirin” was so widely used by the public to mean any brand of that specific pain reliever that it was impossible to reclaim. In the U.S., the court ruled it had become a generic term, forever severing its exclusive link to Bayer.
The story of the thermos is a classic case of a company accidentally encouraging its own brand’s demise. The Thermos company actively promoted its name as synonymous with the product. Their advertising slogan, “Thermos, the ideal vacuum flask”, directly taught consumers to associate the brand name with the product category. In 1963, a landmark court decision ruled that due to the company’s own marketing and overwhelming public use, “thermos” had become a generic noun for any vacuum-insulated container, not just the ones made by the Thermos company.
The word “zipper” didn’t originally refer to the interlocking teeth mechanism. In the 1920s, the B.F. Goodrich Company used a fastener made by another company on its new rubber boots. An executive, delighted by the zipping sound it made, dubbed the boots “Zippers”. The name was catchy and descriptive. The public loved the name so much that they started applying it not just to the boots, but to the fastener itself, regardless of who made it. The name “stuck” to the mechanism, and its trademark protection eventually zipped away.
Other fallen brands include:
Genericide isn’t random; it’s often the result of specific actions (or inactions) by the brand owner, combined with the organic, unstoppable force of public language.
Many famous brands live in constant fear of genericide and actively fight to prevent it. Their struggle is a masterclass in defensive marketing and legal diligence.
Xerox famously fought back against its name becoming a verb. In the 1970s, they launched ad campaigns with the plea: “You can’t Xerox a Xerox on a Xerox. But we don’t mind at all if you copy a copy on a Xerox® copier”. Their efforts largely succeeded in preserving their mark.
Google faces a similar battle today. The verb “to google” is in the dictionary, but the company’s lawyers work tirelessly to ensure it refers specifically to searching on Google’s engine, not generic web searching. Their official stance is: “You should use the word Google only when you’re referring to Google Inc. and our services”.
Adobe is fiercely protective of its Photoshop® trademark. Its legal guidelines explicitly state that the word should never be used as a verb (e.g., “the image was photoshopped”). The correct usage is “the image was edited using Adobe® Photoshop® software”.
Likewise, Johnson & Johnson constantly reinforces its brand identity by referring to its product as “BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages”. This constant repetition of “Brand” and the generic term “Adhesive Bandages” is a deliberate and crucial strategy to keep their iconic name from becoming just another word for a small bandage.
Ultimately, the story of genericide is a powerful reminder that language belongs to its speakers, not corporations. While a company can own a name, it cannot own how people use it in their daily lives. When a word becomes too useful, too simple, and too descriptive, it naturally wants to be free.
The process reveals the beautiful, messy, and democratic nature of language evolution. A brand name that achieves genericide has, in a way, achieved immortality. It has shed its commercial skin to become a permanent part of our shared cultural and linguistic heritage—a legacy that is both a marketer’s greatest triumph and a lawyer’s worst nightmare.
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