Useless Trademark™

Nicad™ Is a trademark of Saft™ This trademark stuff is slightly silly™. (I'm the Open Source type.) And Nicad™ is used without regard of its trademark™.

Nicad may well be a trade mark for nickel cadmium batteries, and why shouldn't it be?

The correct term is Ni-Cd

The abbreviation Ni-Cd is derived from the chemical symbols of nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd): the abbreviation NiCad is a registered trademark of SAFT Corporation, although this brand name is commonly used to describe all Ni–Cd batteries.

Registered trade marks often become the default generic term for various items.

Vacuum cleaner in the UK Hoover
A ball point pen is often called a Bic


List of generic and genericized trademarks

A small sample:

Aspirin
Still a Bayer trademark name for acetylsalicylic acid in about 80 countries, including Canada and many countries in Europe, but declared generic in the U.S.[1]

Catseye
Originally a trademark for a specific type of retroreflective road safety installation.[2]

Cellophane
Still a registered trademark of Innovia Films Ltd in Europe and many other jurisdictions. Genericized in the U.S. Originally a trademark of DuPont.[3][4] A thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose.

Dry ice
Trademarked by the Dry Ice Corporation of America in 1925.[5][6] A solid form of carbon dioxide.

Escalator
Originally a trademark of Otis Elevator Company.

Flit gun
Originally trademarked as a dispenser for Flit, a brand of insecticide manufactured by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon).

Heroin
Trademarked by Friedrich Bayer & Co in 1898.[7][8]
Kerosene
First used around 1852.[9]

Norm said:

Nicad may well be a trade mark for nickel cadmium batteries, and why shouldn't it be?

The correct term is Ni-Cd

The abbreviation Ni-Cd is derived from the chemical symbols of nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd): the abbreviation NiCad is a registered trademark of SAFT Corporation, although this brand name is commonly used to describe all Ni–Cd batteries.


Registered trade marks often become the default generic term for various items.

Vacuum cleaner in the UK Hoover
A ball point pen is often called a Bic

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And band-aid, possibly gopro. Don't know what Saft™ would use Nicad™ for. And I use ni-cd instead of Nicad. It would be possibly easier for people to pronounce.

wow... I hadn't even considered that "NiCad" could be a trademark.

Protecting a trademark can be a difficult task, as the NiCad example shows. The owner of the trademark has to be prepared to put a lot of effort into forcing people to quit using their trademark in inappropriate ways. If they don't, then their valuable trademark may end up as the next kleenex or escalator or herioin (who knew??), and the money and effort spent building up the reputation of that trademark is lost.

I know that my employer has put a fair bit of effort into keeping their name from becoming a generic term for a particular style of product. Among the various forms of annual training, we have a class in the protection of intellectual property, which includes trademarks, copyrights, patents, etc. As an engineer who creates intellectual property, it's an interesting subject.

I love interesting and informative posts.

Steve K said:

wow... I hadn't even considered that "NiCad" could be a trademark.

Protecting a trademark can be a difficult task, as the NiCad example shows. The owner of the trademark has to be prepared to put a lot of effort into forcing people to quit using their trademark in inappropriate ways. If they don't, then their valuable trademark may end up as the next kleenex or escalator or herioin (who knew??), and the money and effort spent building up the reputation of that trademark is lost.

I know that my employer has put a fair bit of effort into keeping their name from becoming a generic term for a particular style of product. Among the various forms of annual training, we have a class in the protection of intellectual property, which includes trademarks, copyrights, patents, etc. As an engineer who creates intellectual property, it's an interesting subject.

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What's the trademark name? What was Saft thinking of when they "Trademarked" Nicad? It's useless now. :shakehead

mcnair55 said:

I love interesting and informative posts.

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Me too. lovecpf