Is Zoom in danger of losing its trademark on teleconferencing? People seem to be using the term regardless of the actual software that is being used. Even if they don’t lose the trademark, will it become the generic term or is it already there? I almost never hear someone say that they are going to Skype anymore.
Could be, but I work in a company where Zoom is forbidden, so we only use Teams, so any “zooming” is only for private use. We never used Skype for teleconferencing as we had a dedicated system for videoconferencing, that has now been mostly phased out as we 1) have teams and 2) aren’t in the office where the videoconference systems are.
In my German class my teacher says we’ll meet on Zoom, and we’re actually using Zoom.
There is a thread discussing frozen dinners in Cafe Society, where “TV Dinners” are mentioned. That is another example of a term that was a registered trademark that morphed into a generic term for a ready-made pre-cooked heat-and-eat frozen dinner packaged on an oven-ready tray.
Swanson has long since abandoned the use of the words “TV Dinner” for their product (a fact which, IIRC, was loudly lamented among the frozen dinner crowd at the time), although I don’t know if the trademark protection technically still exists.
We uses Teams as well. IMO, it’s a superior product. So we have zoom meetings on Teams.
rollseyes
I just googled that on Bing 
and it looks like Zoom isn’t there yet. Many people still use the terms Skype/Skyping or Facetime/Facetiming believe it or not.
I was thinking more about business use than personal. I know that there’s a Skype for Business but are people actually using FaceTime for meetings? I’ve used for work related purposes when I’m troubleshooting in server rooms and stuff like that but I can’t imagine having a meeting over FaceTime.
ETA. Still not a fan of Discourse quote embedding.
There’s a current thread in GQ discussing Zoom, where this is mentioned:
Google hasn’t lost their trademark. I doubt Zoom will.
Going back to the olden days of the .com boom, there were several voice chatting apps prior to Skype, but none caught on like Skype. Has anybody ever said they’re Net2phoning? Those programs all were a huge pain to use, necessitating configuring your home router to forward certain ports and such.
Skype came along and did some fun technical stuff to get around this issue, so two people behind home (or business) NAT routers could call each other without having to do anything other than install Skype. So for 15-20 years people were Skyping each other, even when they actually used some other software.
For years that gave me fits, because somebody would say they would Skype me, and I’d worry about getting Skype installed and configured, and if this week Skype for Business was connecting to Skype personal, and what the other person was using, etc. Then I’d get a Zoom invite, or even a telephone call. I probably haven’t used actual Skype in a decade.
Facetime is also a thing people do or give. The way I used to hear it, pre-pandemic, any computer to computer call was a Skype, and any video call involving an Apple product was Facetime. I’m sure that wasn’t universal, and regions or industries probably had their own dialect, but those were pretty common usages.
Like ordering a soft drink in Texas:
“I’ll have a coke.”
“What kind, we have regular, diet, Dr. Pepper, and Sprite?”
“Let’s setup a zoom meeting for later.”
“Sure, do you want me to send you a Google Meet invite or just hit you up on Facetime?”
I get this from my kid’s teachers. “We’ll have zoom meetings to discuss the new schedule. Google Meet invites will be going out to you’re registered email address.”
Zoom is the only videoconferencing software I have ever used. I found Google Meet a real hassle to install and then the conference I was invited to didn’t come off.
“shit show” is also going this same route. Now-a-days the youngins are using it for every instance of a thing that they don’t like.
They start losing at Tetris and it’s a “shit show”
They drop their phone, it’s a “shit show”.
They forget to kiss their pillow goodnight, it’s a “shit show”.
They paint their feet purple instead of green, it’s a “shit show”.
Starbucks is out of their favorite non-coffee non-coffee drink, it’s a “shit show”.
In my day, when you were playing “Throw shit at each other” and if someone didn’t get socked in the eye with a turd and said turd didn’t run down into their mouth and they tasted the yummy yummy peanuts and then they threw up for 2 days, it wasn’t a “shit show”.
Who holds the trademark for this?
Yeah, Eric Yuan is wayyyyy too smart to let that happen.
Interesting. I have not been hearing this but I live in a different bubble. I don’t hear this from any of the business people I deal with.
Since March I have been in video meetings using:
- Zoom
- WebEx
- GoToMeeting
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype
- Zoho (fail, this one prompted me to create an account to be able to be a participant and the account creation process didn’t work)
I have not encountered Google Meets. I looked at it for hosting a meeting, and it requires all participants to have a Google account. Sure a lot of people do, but not everyone, and I could not make this a requirement. So I used Zoom.
I have never heard anyone refer to a specific non-Zoom meeting as Zoom. However, I have noticed whenever an entertainer or someone in casual conversation refers generically to a video meeting they usually mention Zoom because it gets the idea across quickest.