Google is cracking down, telling people to stop using “google” as a verb, as in, “He asked me out and I googled him to see if he was a crackpot or something.”

Most people would have the same reaction as the bloggers quoted in the CNET article linked above, but there are reasons to try and take steps to protect a trademarked word. Remember Aspirin?

Aspirin (with a capital “A”) was trademarked by Bayer (along with “Heroin“, a pain reliever that Bayer thought had a better future) in 1899.

But the German company Bayer teamed up with BASF and Hoechst to manufacture clorine gas for use during the First World War. In retribution, the Treaty of Versailles included a provision to strip Bayer of its patent and trademark in Britain, France, America and Russia.

The US government sold the right to use the trademark Aspirin to Sterling Drug in 1918. But:

Even before the patent for the drug expired in 1917, Bayer had been unable to stop competitors from copying the formula and using the name elsewhere, and so, with a flooded market, the public was unable to recognize “Aspirin” as coming from only one manufacturer. Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent “Aspirin” from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921.

A trademark is said to be “genericized” when the word enters into everyday use as a description for a product or service, a process sometimes refered to as genericide.

I remember Xerox running ads asking people to please make “photocopies”, not xeroxes. That’s because there has been a long history of genericide. All of these were once trademarks: aspirin, brassiere, cellophane, cola, corn flakes, escalator, granola, gunk, heroin, jungle gym, kerosene, linoleum, raisin bran, shredded wheat, tabloid, thermos, touch-tone, trampoline, yo-yo, and zipper.

Now for some terms that, so far, haven’t lost trademark status:

Some products which are still registered trademarks despite the assault on their names include AstroTurf, Baggies, Band-Aid, Beer Nuts, Breathalyzer, Brillo Pads, Dacron, Dumpster, Frisbee, Hi-Liter, Hula-Hoop, iPod, Jacuzzi, Jeep, Jell-O, Jockey Shorts, Kitty Litter, Kleenex, Kool-aid, Laundromat, Liquid Paper, Magic Marker,  Muzak, Novocain, Palm, Ping-Pong, Play-Doh, Popsicle, Post-it Note, Q-Tip, Realtor, Rollerblade, Scotch Tape, Scrabble, Seeing Eye (dog), Sheetrock, Slim Jim, Styrofoam, Super glue, Technicolor, Teflon, TelePrompTer, Vaseline, Velcro, Walkman and Ziploc.

We can add Google to that last list, for now.

As for me, I have to go google something on Yahoo.