Change You Can Xerox

When Hillary Clinton recently accused presidential rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism by describing him as the candidate of “change you can Xerox“, trademark lawyers at Xerox Corporation winced. For years, Xerox has fought against the genericisation of the Xerox brand and trademark. A genericised trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for a particular class of product or service. The generic use of the term “Xerox” as a verb in place of the word photocopy, diminishes the value of the Xerox trademark in the marketplace and can result in the loss of intellectual property rights by the trademark holder. In the past, Xerox Corporation has attempted to police its brand use by launching advertising campaigns promoting the “Xerox machine” and has been successful in protecting the trademark in Canada and the United States. The brand has, however, become generic in Russia, Bulgaria, Portugal and Romania. Aspirin, Band-Aid and Thermos are also examples of brands which became victims of brand genericisation.

Under Canadian trademark law, a trademark should never be used as a noun (whether in singular, plural or possessive form) or as a verb. Every day phrases such as “I need a Kleenex” should be discouraged as the correct use of the trademark is “I need a Kleenex tissue”. It may seem natural and even beneficial from a marketing perspective to use the trademark as a noun or verb. Many like to have their trademark considered synonymous with the wares or services with which it is associated. However, certain trademarks, through misuse by their owners and others, have passed into the English language by becoming generic terms. The brands Escalator, Jacuzzi, Linoleum and Tabloid were all once trademarks of a specific product but are now generic terms commonly used to describe a product category. The use of a brand name as part of the English language, or any language should always be avoided to prevent genericisation of the trademark.

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This entry was posted by Niamh Pollak on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am and is filed under Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Change You Can Xerox”

  1. seva on March 8th, 2008 11:35 am

    Excellent post, and kudos for noting the that many of these trademarks have become nouns and verbs in Eastern Europe. I should note that the reason for this presents an interesting cononundrum in itself, particularly, the risk of being the sole provider of a specific type of product in the market.

    The reason why Xerox, as well as Jeep, Aspirin, Thermos, and many others have become everyday words in Russian is in many cases because products from these companies were the only ones of their kinds available. Xerox was the only brand of photocopying machines purchased for Soviet government offices (it was even used in a Soviet embassy in the US, precipitating a famous spy story where a miniature camera was covertly installed and serviced by a Xerox technician – http://www.infosecnews.org/hypermail/9909/1740.html). Similarly, Jeep in Russian means any SUV, mainly because the primary Soviet exposure to such vehicles were to Jeep Wyllys, ubiquitously used by the US and allies during WWII (http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Jeeps/).

    The Thermos trademark, in the context of Russia, is also interesting as it was not simply genericized, but Soviet factories manufactured and sold a variety of products called “thermos”. Thus, it was not simply about being a single provider of a type of product (although perhaps that’s how it started), but also about institutional trademark infringement.

    again, great post!