Generic trademark

A generic trademark, also known as a genericized trademark or proprietary eponym, is a trademark or brand name that, because of its popularity or significance, has become the generic term for, or synonymous with, a general class of products or services, usually against the intentions of the trademark's owner.

A trademark is prone to genericization, or "genericide", when a brand name acquires substantial market dominance or mind share, becoming so widely used for similar products or services that it is no longer associated with the trademark owner, e.g., linoleum, bubble wrap, thermos, and aspirin. A trademark thus popularized is at risk of being challenged or revoked, unless the trademark owner works sufficiently to counter and prevent such broad use.

Trademark owners can inadvertently contribute to genericization by failing to provide an alternative generic name for their product or service or using the trademark in similar fashion to generic terms. In one example, the Otis Elevator Company's trademark of the word "escalator" was cancelled following a petition from Toledo-based Haughton Elevator Company. In rejecting an appeal from Otis, an examiner from the United States Patent and Trademark Office cited the company's own use of the term "escalator" alongside the generic term "elevator" in multiple advertisements without any trademark significance. Therefore, trademark owners go to extensive lengths to avoid genericization and trademark erosion.

Genericization may be specific to certain professions and other subpopulations. For example, Luer-Lok (Luer lock), Phoroptor (phoropter), and Port-a-Cath (portacath) have genericized mind share among physicians due to a lack of alternative names in common use: as a result, consumers may not realize that the term is a brand name rather than a medical eponym or generic term.

Pharmaceutical trade names are somewhat protected from genericization due to the modern practice of assigning nonproprietary names based on a drug's chemical structure. This circumvents the problem of a trademarked name entering common use by providing a generic name as soon as a novel pharmaceutical enters the market. For example, aripiprazole, the nonproprietary name for Abilify, was well-documented since its invention. Warfarin, originally introduced as a rat poison, was approved for human use under the brand name Coumadin.

Examples of genericization before the modern system of generic drugs include aspirin, introduced to the market in 1897, and heroin, introduced in 1898. Both were originally trademarks of Bayer AG. However, U.S. court rulings in 1918 and 1921 found the terms to be genericized, stating the company's failure to reinforce the brand's connection with their product as the reason.

A different sense of the word genericized in the pharmaceutical industry refers to products whose patent protection has expired. For example, Lipitor was genericized in the U.S. when the first competing generic version was approved by the FDA in November 2011. In this same context, the term genericization refers to the process of a brand drug losing market exclusivity to generics.

Trademark erosion, or genericization, is a special case of antonomasia related to trademarks. It happens when a trademark becomes so common that it starts being used as a common name, most often occurring when the original company has failed to prevent such use. Once it has become an appellative, the word cannot be registered any more; this is why companies try hard not to let their trademark become too common, a phenomenon that could otherwise be considered a successful move since it would mean that the company gained exceptional recognition. An example of trademark erosion is the verb "to hoover" (used with the meaning of "vacuum cleaning"), which originated from the Hoover company brand name.