Don't Say Velcro (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Say Velcro (2017)

#171

Post by zdimension » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 1:08 AM UTC

ajcp wrote: post #154

janci wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as LEGO brick controversy. Supposedly the bricks are not Legos, LEGOs and certainly not legos. At least per their legal dept.

I think it's a North American thing to call anything LEGO "Legos", denoting that it is a thing made up of many pieces of "Lego" right? In Europe if you pointed to a LEGO set or a pile of LEGO pieces every response you'd get would be "that's LEGO". But then again in Europe, or at least in Germany, we had many different brands to choose from for the same kind of construction play, whereas in North America it seemed lik…

One in France (or other European French-speaking countries) would say "des Legos" to refer to a bunch of Lego pieces or Lego sets. "Un Lego" would mean a single Lego brick.

Re: Don't Say Velcro (2017)

#172

Post by DoItToMe81 » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 10:46 AM UTC

1f60c wrote: post #19

(2017), according to https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/26/velcros-video... They're trying to avoid genericide. I think if they didn't do this, they could actually lose the trademark .

Genericide is the funniest myth copyright enforcement agencies ever invented. Common use has not "genericided" anything after the 50s except for intentionally litigious naming ("flip phone") or things comprised of hypergeneric terms like videotape. Kleenex and Hoover have not lost their trademarks despite widespread generic use by millions.

Re: Don't Say Velcro (2017)

#173

Post by NikkiA » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

docdeek wrote: post #45

No problem in France - the generic term for Velcro here is 'scratch'.

Which is ironic given 'velcro' is a deliberate portmanteau of 'velours crochet'

Re: Don't Say Velcro (2017)

#174

Post by Digit-Al » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

zuminator wrote: post #102

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/15... (from wikipedia sources) > plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence in this case to support a jury finding that the relevant public primarily understands the word "google" as a generic name for internet search engines and not as a mark identifying the Google search engine in particular. I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used.…

I think in Google's favor, their service is so utterly dominant[0] as a search engine that when someone asks you to google something they have a high expectation that it will be done on Google. As opposed to someone asking you to hoover up a mess but they don't really form an internal model of which vacuum cleaner you'll use, or asking to "borrow" a kleenex with no concern as to which brand of tissue you give them. S…

The problem with replacing "googling" for me is that, as far as I can tell, no one has come up with any better term. I, like yourself, tend to use DDG mostly and would prefer not to say "googling", but saying "web searching" is more wordy and clumsy.

We really need to come up with another term that is more generic but just as snappy and easy to say as "googling".

Re: Don't Say Velcro (2017)

#175

Post by throwaway494749 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

merelysounds wrote: post #28

Related, Google wrote a blog post[1] on a similar topic in 2006. As far as I know they've successfully avoided genericide and a 2017 lawsuit[2] ended with a ruling in their favor. Also, unsurprisingly, Adobe has a whole section in their trademarks page about photoshopping[3]: > Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software. > Incorrect: The image was photoshopped. [1]: https://googleblog.bl…

Be careful what you wish for. I've noticed that young people, who have to use Bing and Ecosia at school (or go straight to TikTok and rarely use search engines) no longer use Google as a verb. They say "search it up" instead of "Google it". Google (the word) is going from generic to specific/proprietary again.