A critical question of language

Trademark owners do not own words. They own trademark rights. They have no legal or moral control over language.

We have addressed this many times.

Trademark law is not a regulation of speech in general. For example, the Lego company would love it if you said “Lego-brand toy blocks” all the time and only in reference to their legitimately branded blocks and avoided calling them “Legos,” and especially avoided calling someone else’s blocks “legos” in a generic sense.

But you can do it all day every day for the rest of your life. You can even write a book that does it. A newspaper can go around printing “Legos” and “legos” all it wants, and the Lego company will never get any relief for it.

That’s because there’s no use in commerce here. Nobody is selling goods or services using “Legos” or “legos” as a source indicator (i.e., brand name). They can send out letters and publish websites complaining about “trademark misuse,” but you know what? Trademark misuse isn’t a thing in the law. So tough shit. Ultimately, if the public decides that “legos” is more useful as a generic term rather than as a brand name, then the Lego company is screwed.

[quote=“Acsenray, post:51, topic:834627, full:true”]