An interesting list of genericized trademarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks

…but I forgive you

If the folks at Lego want you to protect their trademark by being a jerk, then they ought to be decent enough to PAY you to protect their trademark for them by being a jerk. It’s a pain in the butt, being a jerk, and although it comes easy to some people (names not to be mentioned here, unless I get paid), it’s an artform that ought to be monetized.

However, you commented that “If I want to refer to Coca-Cola as “Coke”, there is nothing that the Coca-Cola company can do to avoid this.” The folks at Coca-Cola wouldn’t want you to avoid this. They have a number of trademarks on “Coke”. (You need a separate trademark on each category. A trademark on the beverage would not protect them from someone producing Coke clothes, so they have both of those trademarks. If you want to start a personal computer company called ‘Coke Computers’, it appears that you could get your own trademark on that.

But this discussion sorta reminds me of the teacher who asked the farmer why some cattle didn’t have horns. Some breeds of cattle, he informed her, don’t grow horns. Some cattle don’t grow horns because they are cows rather than bulls. Those cattle, he said, pointing to them, don’t have horns because they’re horses.

Have fun. If you want to call them legos, go ahead. Maybe Ponzi will realize he’s a jerk and come show her appreciation. Me, I’m married, perhaps excessively so.