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by vicbrooker 4293 days ago
IANAL, but it will depend on whether JavaScript is used by members of the public to refer to ECMAScript that isn't JavaScript (that's a mouthful).

In other words, I can call a fountain pen a biro and that shows that the trademark has become generic, it doesn't matter that I'm technically wrong.

This is how it works in Commonwealth jurisdictions anyway, haven't checked US law for about a year.

2 comments

People generally bring up kleenex and xerox as the examples of trademarks lost to generic use (and someone upthread mentioned band-aid), but I think a more interesting example is coke. There are large regions of the US where "coke" is the general term for soda, so that the following invented example wouldn't raise eyebrows:

    A: Want a coke?
    B: Yes, a 7-up please.
(Or at least, it wouldn't raise eyebrows for the implication that a 7-up is a kind of coke.)

How is Coca-Cola dealing with this? Do they have a policy or a strategy?

It's the same. The issue is actual usage, not whatever meaning is correct.