I remember learning that trademarks that have been genericized (like Band-Aid, Popsicle, Velcro, Clorox, etc) are at risk of losing their trademark or copyright.
Can someone explain to me how exactly does this work? Cause i never really understood this
A trademark is a distinct way to refer to a business. The whole set of legal rights and privileges that this weird form of intellectual property gets are to make sure that when somebody talks about " dome guys tacos" they’re definitely talking about my tacos and not yours or some other persons.
If I let dumb guys tacos become a generic term that I don’t say hey, that’s not talking about my tacos anymore. Don’t do that then I’ve let my trademark become generic. This is unlikely to happen to actual tacos but if I had come up with a brand new pseudo taco dish and I called it the DCT, and then every Mexican restaurant in the country copied it and also called it the DCT, then the idea has become genericized and I can’t. Then at the end of it start trying to collect money from other people for calling the thing I invented and failed to produce by the name that has been attached to it.
This is of course entirely apart from the menu of how to create a DCT, we should be covered by copyright, or the specific set of instructions on how to create a DCT, which hypothetically I could get a patent on. (Although I don’t think they award patents for food.)