Trademark at risk of becoming a meme - need to enforce?

[wallforce]

Say you've got a new product, niche or mainstream, that is not yet widely known. You've used it in commerce and have registered federally.

Soon after the same name appears in a TV show or magazine to describe somerthing else, say an action. This name could become new slang.

Is there any risk of losing the trademark? Should one take action against the user of the term? If the slang is derogatory and reflects poorly on your product is there anything you can do?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

This is impossible to answer. To begin, a trademark can exist in different classes so using it for a shoe product may have no bearing on its status if you registered the mark in a class for telecommunications products. That said, there have been terms (see "xerox" as a good example) that became commonly used words and that companies had to rigorously enforce their marks to prevent them from losing the mark.

 

[ArthurS]

Hard to answer as prof. had mentioned. A mark is as good as the people enforcing it.