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Protecting Your Trademark from Becoming Generic: Top 5 Do's and Don'ts

Massachusetts trademark attorney Ashley Long warns in her law firm's blog, Good Company, against the phenomenon of over-familiarizing the world with your brand to the point of it becoming generic. Writes Long,

"Be wary, dear branding enthusiast. The specter of genericide haunts those marks that venture beyond the safety of proper trademark usage. What is genericide? It’s what happens to trademarks when they become the thing they were used to describe."

She uses the yo-yo as an example of a trademark that became part of the public lexicon and lost its brand status.

Long provides 5 tips for how best to promote your trademark while protecting it at the same time. To read the full article, click on: Trademark or Generic?

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