Don't Say Velcro (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Don't Say Velcro (2017)

velcro.com

98 pointssickmate166 comments

I think this is one of those weird cases where they have to tell you the opposite of what they actually want, for legal reasons.

I think VELCRO(r) actually DOES want everybody to use their name the way it is commonly used - it's good for brand recognition.

But legally, retaining control of their brand requires them to clearly defend it from such generic use. This post is an example of that. If someone is using their brand in a way they don't want (like on a product not made by them), they can win a trademark case in court by pointing to posts like this.

Ding ding ding. They even throw their lawyers under the bus, saying that they are discouraging use of the term Velcro for the purpose of legal defense of their valuable Velcro trademark. Did this gain any real traction at any point?

Same as LEGO brick controversy. Supposedly the bricks are not Legos, LEGOs and certainly not legos. At least per their legal dept.

I think it's a North American thing to call anything LEGO "Legos", denoting that it is a thing made up of many pieces of "Lego" right? In Europe if you pointed to a LEGO set or a pile of LEGO pieces every response you'd get would be "that's LEGO". But then again in Europe, or at least in Germany, we had many different brands to choose from for the same kind of construction play, whereas in North America it seemed like it's just LEGO.

I agree, in the UK I never heard them referred to as "Legos" and only ever heard that in American media. It always felt like one of those sloppy contractions Americans use, like "Do you wanna go with?" and "I'll write him"

One in France (or other European French-speaking countries) would say "des Legos" to refer to a bunch of Lego pieces or Lego sets. "Un Lego" would mean a single Lego brick.

There are several different brands of LEGO-compatible bricks in the US. In practice, though, the bricks are called "legos" generically, whether they're LEGO or not.

Yes, the people who say "Lego" is the "correct" plural are also wrong according to the document they cite for that opinion.

The Lego Group's material says that you are never to use Lego as a noun. It's always "Lego bricks", "Lego sets", "Lego minifigures", etc.

Colloquially, they don't really care what you call them, plural or singular.

There's a middle ground between not having enough brand recognition and losing control over your trademark to the point where it becomes generic.

Defending and suing helps keep it in the middle ground, but they're not going to sue Pat on the street for misusing the word -- which is where generic comes from, right?

Related, Google wrote a blog post[1] on a similar topic in 2006. As far as I know they've successfully avoided genericide and a 2017 lawsuit[2] ended with a ruling in their favor.

Also, unsurprisingly, Adobe has a whole section in their trademarks page about photoshopping[3]:

> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.

> Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.

[1]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-you-google.html

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_litigation#Genericide_o...

[3]: https://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html

> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.

This makes me laugh every time I read it. Surely, even the lawyers at Adobe are fully aware that literally nobody is going to use that mouthful of a term (complete with ®s, even).

I always wonder why they didn't come up with a replacement that would actually have a chance.

> This makes me laugh every time I read it. Surely, even the lawyers at Adobe are fully aware that literally nobody is going to use that mouthful of a term (complete with ®s, even).

I guarantee you marketing teams at Adobe will use that term.

Because they don't care whether people actually do it, nor is it realistic that they would. I'm sure the person who wrote that "correct" option made it that silly on purpose and laughed on pushing Publish.

People with enough reach to be worth suing will write it that way, or close enough.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/15... (from wikipedia sources)

> plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence in this case to support a jury finding that the relevant public primarily understands the word "google" as a generic name for internet search engines and not as a mark identifying the Google search engine in particular.

I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used. My lived experience has me telling people that I googled something despite my default search engine being DDG on all of my devices. One can’t really present the myriad spoken conversations which include this use as evidence in court, so what would they do?

Slightly aside: the “correct” examples that are given are always amusing but there’s something about Adobe’s double copyright symbol that hits me harder. That is too funny, not least because they’re 100% serious-face about it.

I think in Google's favor, their service is so utterly dominant[0] as a search engine that when someone asks you to google something they have a high expectation that it will be done on Google. As opposed to someone asking you to hoover up a mess but they don't really form an internal model of which vacuum cleaner you'll use, or asking to "borrow" a kleenex with no concern as to which brand of tissue you give them.

So even though you personally use DDG, surely there are still vastly more searches on Google than on all other search engines combined so there's no immediate danger of dilution.

I do have a question though for people familiar with trademark law. Why can't they just do away with the trademark dilution rule? So what if I want to go "rollerblading" on pair of K2s [1]? Why should Rollerblade be at risk of losing their trademark? Who is being served by this rule? It just seems to incentivize litigious behavior.

[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share (note that they easily beat all other search engines combined

[1] https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health-products/g46167391/b... (Good Housekeeping has no problem genericizing rollerblade all throughout this article. Perhaps unlike Velcro, Nordica is ok with this?)

> I do have a question though for people familiar with trademark law. Why can't they just do away with the trademark dilution rule?

It’s not really a rule. It’s that genericization undermines the rationale for trademark protection.

Trademarks are granted to give a business exclusive use of an identifier in conjunction with a particular product or service in order to protect consumers from marketplace confusion.

For example, USPTO has granted a trademark for “iPhone” so that when consumers buy an “iPhone” they get what they expect. A phone made by Apple Inc. When people say “iPhone” they’re definitely talking about Apple Inc phones.

However, if consumers themselves don’t care, and they use a term to refer to any brand, even when they know it is from a different origin, then the word is no longer serving the purpose for which the trademark was granted.

Otis Elevator company doesn’t have a trademark on “Escalator” anymore because literally nobody cares what company manufactured the moving stairs they’re going up. Nobody is harmed, confused, or misled when other makes of moving stairs are called “escalators”.

Ironicly your example is one where Apple initially used someone else's trademarked brandname. IPhone had been initially owned and used by infogear and later was acquired by Cisco and used for a line of VoIP connected phones. Apple tried to negotiate a deal for the name but announced the Apple iPhone before they had actually finished negotiations over the name. Leading to a large legal battle that was eventually settled out of court where both companies were allowed to sell phones under the trademarked iPhone name.

And speaking of Cisco, "IOS" for that matter too.

The problem with replacing "googling" for me is that, as far as I can tell, no one has come up with any better term. I, like yourself, tend to use DDG mostly and would prefer not to say "googling", but saying "web searching" is more wordy and clumsy.

We really need to come up with another term that is more generic but just as snappy and easy to say as "googling".

Law is weird, but in real life people use google as a verb meaning "search on the internet" every single time. When a public figure says something like "look it up on Google" instead of "google it" (and you an almost hear the © in the former), that almost always means they've been in long talks with Google representatives about an ad campaign and they urged the speaker to not use the brand as a verb.

> I wonder what kind of evidence might actually be used.

IANAL, but perhaps the dividing line isn't whether or not the term is commonly used as a generic one, but whether people are not generally aware that it's a brand name. I wasn't aware that "Velcro" was a brand name for a long time, for instance.

I think the majority of people using "google" generically are also fully aware that "Google" is a brand name.

So the evidence would be some sort of study showing that people think it's really generic?

Actual photo shops existed before Adobe Photoshop.

Be careful what you wish for. I've noticed that young people, who have to use Bing and Ecosia at school (or go straight to TikTok and rarely use search engines) no longer use Google as a verb. They say "search it up" instead of "Google it". Google (the word) is going from generic to specific/proprietary again.

> Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.

Dumb question: how would you pronounce this if you were saying it ? Specifically the ® symbol ?

I think it's an inflection thing. You unnaturally emphasize the word, pause a bit, and try to fight back conveying incredulousness with your facial expression.

Silly-but-true answer: When I'm reading stuff like that aloud and wish to both be silly and make a point, I just read it as "registeredtrademark", very fast.

Serious answer: You don't. You just leave it out in speech.

Reference the end of radio advertisements where they blast through the tiny text very quickly.

Unicode's name for it is REGISTERED SIGN. It's usually silent when part of a brand name, though.

Going by the Velcro website, you should be saying "Adobe Brand Photoshop Brand Elements software".

Ridiculous.

By saying adobeisaregisteredtrademarkofadobecorporation very fast :)

"R in circle". Just like copyright is "C in circle".

I can just imagine actors on some TV show saying this because the corporate sponsors demanded 'correct usage'.

In Ren & Stimpy comics, Powdered Toast Man always referred to the product for which he was named as Powdered Toast® or Powdered Toast™. I always took that as a hint that he pronounced the marks somehow.

Why the downvotes for such a simple, factual statement that answered the question? If you do an internet search for the phrase "C in circle" you'll find it is a quite common way to describe this symbol. On the Wikipedia talk page, someone mentioned hearing this description in their school textbooks which were recorded in an audio version. Way back when I volunteered for Recording for the Blind (now Learning Ally) I recall that this was also the designated way to read this symbol.

« Velcro » is just roughly short for “hook (and) loop” in French (Velour et crochet — velvet and hook). So why not use the abbreviation? Trademarking it is like trademarking any common word, like Windows.

Actually I do have some sympathy; from working at Xerox I somehow was convinced to say “photocopy” (not that anyone uses either expression any more). And I always say “web search” because I don’t want to endorse or encourage the use of google.

"Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.

They are desperately trying to make it _not_ the abbreviation this comment claims it to be. Quite like "kleenex" in that way.

Normal people generally shouldn't care what the company's legal team wants or thinks--this campaign certainly doesn't stop me from using the term generically--but if the company defends its trademark in this way, it can extend the time _other_ _companies_ can use it as a generic description of what it does.

Based on nothing but my gut:

Velcro is the right word.

Xerox is acceptable but not what I reach for first.

Kleenex just sounds wrong. It's tissue and always has been.

Maybe it's a regional thing? NorCal.

Of course it's a regional thing. There's many examples from around the world. For many in Britain "hoover" is synonymous with vacuum cleaners, and "tannoy' for loud speaker / public address system.

In hungary the brand name of KUKA (of orange robot arm fame) become genericized to mean any kind of trash bin. I heard it happened because they produced the first widely used garbage trucks in Hungary and they had their brand name written on the trucks (or perhaps even on the garbage cans, depending on where you read the story). So much so that the garbage trucks are called “kukás autó”, and the profession of garbage collection itself is just called “kukás”.

A long long time ago I built a robot out of a garbage can to celebrate this weird connection: https://youtu.be/LFD63moEUkw?si=qDQ54dVNIvOG8nrM

> Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.

You're arguing against a claim I didn't make. I simply said it's an abbreviation for a French phrase (the inventor was a French speaking swiss). Contractions of this sort are more common in French than straight acronyms, which tend to be more common in English. I didn't say it was some pre-existing word.

> So why not use the abbreviation?

HooLoo? I think another company may object to that name.

Hulu, the video streaming company, doesn't do much in the textiles/garmeny industry, and would have little trademark claim to the name used in a different industry.

Unless they were Monster Incorporated, makers of expensive, gold-plated cables with a history of seeing anyone who uses “monster” in a product name regardless of commercial industry.

Reminds me tangentially of this great recreation of a deposition: https://youtu.be/PZbqAMEwtOE

I say bing it just to go against the grain. There was a time when people thought twice upon hearing it but now most people inherently understand the phrase which is mildly amusing.

HoLo?

No, they're usually high.

(2017), according to https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/09/26/velcros-video...

They're trying to avoid genericide. I think if they didn't do this, they could actually lose the trademark.

Yes. This video is now required viewing in intro trademark classes at law schools to illustrate this point.

Genericide is the funniest myth copyright enforcement agencies ever invented. Common use has not "genericided" anything after the 50s except for intentionally litigious naming ("flip phone") or things comprised of hypergeneric terms like videotape. Kleenex and Hoover have not lost their trademarks despite widespread generic use by millions.

but can they really stop it?

I mean in most cases where a term becomes "generic" it has been long time generic before at some point someone bothers to make a study/lawsuit which declares it as generic as result.

For example pretty much everyone I know uses Lego as a generic term and knows about not Lego produced bricks. Currently Lego still managed to defend the trademark but IMHO it's just a matter of time until it becomes generic because it already defacto is and the only reason they still avoid it becoming generic is protectionism.

Maybe. It’s an uphill battle, but if they start now at least they’ll be generating evidence in their favor for the inevitable trials to come. But it may be too late. Most companies that have done this successfully have started a bit earlier.

I suspect as long as they don’t allow competitors to genericize the trademark they’ll be ok.

After all there are regions where all soda is called “coke” and that trademark hasn’t been lost.

I live in a region where lots of people refer to most colas as "coke", but you bet if I start selling cola in a red can with "Coke" on it I'm going to have some lawyers showing up at my door.

This. I don't think that "coke" on its own can be trademarked because it's an actual common word (a form of coal). The trademark would have to be the word in combination with other aspects that make it distinctive. The color scheme, or font, or associated decorative elements, for instance.

"Coca-Cola", however, is distinctive on its own and is trademarkable as such.

> I don't think that "coke" on its own can be trademarked because it's an actual common word (a form of coal).

That wouldn’t be relevant unless you were actually talking about the form of coal.

Although many people say in shorthand that "[word] is trademarked.", trademarks are not “on a word” they’re on a particular use of a word. “coke” when referring to a beverage is mostly not a generic word. (Except maybe in the southern US :) )

For example "Apple" is trademarked in reference to computer hardware/software, etc. It isn't in reference to the fruit.

The Coca-Cola Company absolutely has a registered trademark of Coke for a ton of different products.

https://www.gerbenlaw.com/trademarks/food-companies/coca-col...

Trademarks are all about context. Exxon used to have a cartoon tiger as a mascot who sometimes looked a bit like Tony the Tiger. This was usually fine because the contexts were pretty different, one was for foods and one was for gasoline, radically different product markets. However, once Exxon started using their cartoon tiger mascot to sell the foods in the TigerMart convenience stores Kellog sued them and won.

https://www.forbes.com/2000/10/17/1017forbes500.html?sh=6a04...

If I go to a restaurant and ask for "Coke" they're not going to get confused and grab me some coal. I'd be pretty confused to open a red 12oz can that says Coke on it and find it full of coal dust. Nobody is confusing these products.

I’ve noticed more of laces don’t even ask “Is Pepsi ok?” which might be where things start to fall apart.

Yes. Xerox is one example of a company that succeeded with their marketing campaign in a lot of the world. I understand that in Australia one used to xerox documents, but now you certainly photocopy them. In India they still xerox documents.

Funnily enough, even though vel-cro is a combination of two words in French (velour crochet), most people in France call it just "scratch" (as per the sound it makes).

That’s pretty damn creative as far as trademarks go. “Apple” and “Windows” were just borrowed completely.

I'm french and you taught me something today (velours-crochet), as I always called it scratch.

Reminds me of the dark ages, when Xerox was so dominant in the copier market that people used their brand as a noun and a verb. They were threatened with loss of their trademark, because it had become so generic. So they had a massive publicity campaign, asking people to say "copy" instead of "xerox".

Is this a uniquely US thing? In the UK, people always say "hoover" instead of "vacuum".

In France many trademarks became generic names:

Frigidaire and its abbreviated form frigo is the standard name for a refrigerator (nobody ever says "réfrigérateur").

Kleenex is the standard word meaning "paper handkerchief".

Sopalin is the standard word for "roll of paper towels".

Many automotive parts are called from a brand name too : "Delco" is the only name an igniter is ever called; a flexible black tube is always called a "Durit" whatever its brand.

A modular pre-made, stackable non permanent housing module is an "Algeco".

A bus stop with a roof is called an Abribus.

A supermarket trolley is almost always called a Caddie.

A credit card is universally called a "Carte Bleue" or CB, to the point that people will happily use the nonsensical "CB" acronym for a credit card when speaking English.

Cellophane is called Cellophane. I don't even know of an another word for it :)

Escalator was a trademark registered by Otis, the company that made those stairs-go-up devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

Don't forget

- bic for a ball pen

- scotch for duct tape

- kalxon for a car honk

- rubalise for the white-and-red tape used in streets

- mobylette for that very specific old style scooter

- pédalo for the floating thingy on the beaches with pedals

As for cellophane I always called it "film plastique" or just "plastique", but this varies a lot from region to region and family to family.

As for Durit, it's actually a bit more interesting as the brand was genericised to "durite". It's so prevalent that we have expressions using it like "péter une durite" as a way to say "going crazy".

In Russian we also do this 1uite a lot. Xerox, google and photoshop are absolutely normal for activities. Also, thermos for vacuum flask. Dandy is a term for NES clones. doshirak or rolton for ramen noodles. Fairy for dish washing liquid.

Sure, it is also klaxon, cellophane and scotch.

Interesting, that champagne is the only case I know that won the fight. My friends often say sparkling wine for generic brands.

I'm Swiss (French speaking) and I call cellophane "saran", which... is another brand!

>Cellophane is called Cellophane.

This floor is made of floor

In Brazil it is still used as a photocopy term (much easier to say "tirar uma xerox" than "tirar uma fotocópia"). Other common terms that we use that came from brands:

shaving razor -> gilete (instead of "lâmina de barbear")

chewing gum -> chiclete (instead of "goma de mascar")

cotton swab -> cotonete (a J&J brand, instead of "haste flexível")

polystyrene -> isopor (a Knauf brand, instead of "esferovite" or "poliestireno expandido")

This happens a lot here in Brazil. Some brands are so famous that they are synonyms of some products, e. g. Gillette (razor blade), Bom Bril (steel wool), Insulfim (window film) and so on.

Xerox is a curious thing here. It is a so strong synonym to photocopy that almost no one remembers that it is a brand (at least, I don't remember seeing in person any Xerox device). It is so strong that xerox also means the shops were the photocopies are made.

Just place Google Maps over São Paulo, search for "xerox" and see what happens

I think the "defend it or lose it" nature of trademarks may be a US wrinkle, but I'm not sure.

During the 90s, Nintendo popularized the use of the term "game console" to avoid people's moms calling their competitors "Nintendos". Like Atari before them, their name had become synonymous with video games in general, something they wanted to avoid in order to protect their trademark.

There are references to "consoles" before this happened, dating back to the early 80s, but in everyday language most kids called them "video game systems" or by their brand names (Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc.).

The manuals for the NES, SNES, and N64 never once used the term "Game Console". They exclusively called it the "Control Deck". It's not until the GameCube (2001) that they finally refer to the system as a "Console" in the user manual.

Does anyone know any people who actually called their consoles "Control Decks"?

Again, Control Deck was how they branded their own products. In the 90s they ran advertisements advising people to refer to their competitors' products as game consoles. I don't remember anyone using the term "Control Deck" to refer to the console.

Nintendo also referred to their cartridges as Game Paks, another term not used outside official Nintendo materials (including Nintendo Power). Everybody just called them cartridges, carts, or just games. It kind of reminds me of how Texas Instruments tried to get "Command Module" over as a term for their TI-99/4(A) cartridges. It didn't go over.

Oddly enough, the official TI-ism for the 99/4A unit itself was "console".

The famous 1990 ad saying "There's no such thing as a Nintendo" https://images.nintendolife.com/16326a1099812/no-such-thing-... does not mention "Consoles". Do you know of any 90s Nintendo ads that do use the word Console?

It was one of those things I could've sworn I saw at the time. It would've been later than that one, and I swear it was Nintendo urging the use of the term console. It could be something else, or I might be misremembering entirely.

In Brazil, "xerox" is synonym with copy and is used in pretty much any context where the latter word makes sense (even if it's not a copy of a document). The verb "xerocar" derives from it, and even appears in dictionaries.

https://www.dicio.com.br/xerocar/ https://dicionario.priberam.org/xerocar

> Is this a uniquely US thing?

No, in Russia people have been xerring documents since photocopiers appeared there.

You should add that kserokopiya (xerocopy) has been in laws for ages. Like "to have the car insurance original or xerocopy".

"Xerring"? Not "xeroxing"?

Yep, in Russian xerring (ксерить) sounds way better because "ox" part is rarely used in native words.

Polish does the same thing, ksero for the machine, kserować for the verb (wać is a somewhat common verb ending for the infinitive).

TIL. Thanks!

Username checks out, haha.

In Russian it did stick as a word for photocopiers (ксерокс), copies (ксерокопия) and the act of copying (ксерить, ксерокопировать) to this day.

At this point it's more of a legend, but it goes that the word we use for toilet, унитаз, is the brand name of the company that sold toilets in 19th century.

Scotch is one brand of adhesive tape but we call all such tape "скотч".

Other than ксерокс, the other uses can be considered valid applications of the Greek root words.

Always a good time to share this: https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002847155/verbat...

In Canada an in-sink garbage disposal unit is called a Garburator. I recently learned that’s a brand name of said devices. I’ve lived in the states for a while now, but I’m entirely unsure what everyone calls them down here.

If you've never seen the video ad that went along with this campaign, it's hilarious and worth watching, as is the follow up. I love the good humor about the whole thing. And it has made their campaign stick in ways that other similar campaigns have not.

https://youtu.be/rRi8LptvFZY?si=nfzpn2DDngeyyETN

https://youtu.be/ZLWMQLMiTPk?si=28csS65KpQyoFrEn

Cute attempt, but Velcro/velcro has already been genericised for decades at this point. Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," especially when the alternative rolls off the tongue a lot better.

> Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," especially when the alternative rolls off the tongue a lot better.

Cynically, I wonder if they intentionally chose an alternative that they know is a dud. They clearly do benefit from people calling it Velcro, they just can’t have a trademark judge thinking that they want people to call it Velcro.

In any case, the video is quite fun and well done. If you take it as a marketing campaign without putting too much weight on the legal strategy, it’s smart and well-executed on their part.

That may not matter to Velcro (TM). As long as they're publicly making attempts to defend their trademark, perhaps that is enough for them to keep legal rights to it.

> That may not matter to Velcro (TM)

Surely you know from reading the article that it's actually "Velcro® Brand". It's easier to follow than most telenovelas. We get it, hook and loop isn’t in our everyday vocabulary, but calling it Velcro (TM) just wouldn’t be true.

"I am stuck on Band-Aid® brand, 'cause Band-Aid®'s stuck on me!"

It doesn't read like an honest attempt, it reads like a tongue-in-cheek parody of one.

Turns out judges used to be lawyers and are pretty good at reading between the lines, too.

> Nobody's going to move (back?) to "hook-and-loop," […]

I do, depending on the audience — I'm fine with hook-and-loop. In general I try to avoid generic trademarks whenever reasonable. In English this takes more effort; in Dutch this isn't too much of an issue. No native Dutch speaker would consider calling an 'ijsdweilmachine' a 'zamboni', for example. It seems that this is very much a US English thing to do.

"Hook-and-loop" is a crappy name for it in English because it conveys an image of someone physically performing a hooking and looping action, like the old-timey hobby, latch hooking[0]. But the action you perform is really just either pressing together or pulling apart. The fact that the mechanism is comprised of tiny hooks and loops isn't really germane to how it works on a macro level. I quite like the "fur tape" mock suggestion in the second video.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4MDeHa_1C-w

Yeah. If someone was to say their clothes had hook-and-loop fastener, I would never think of velcro. I would think of the metal hooks and loops (or eyes) on bra straps, old jackets, dress pants, etc.

Nah, it happens in Dutch too. Aspirine for example is commonly used for the generic medicine, even though it's a brand name. (Hell, it's sometimes even used as a general term for a light over-the-counter pain killer like paracetamol.)

TomTom is also sometimes used for general navigation systems, though that has been going downhill as fast as the company.

"Googlen" is used too in the general sense. Google does have a huge market share, so it's usually correct, but people do "google on Bing".

I know the first robotics competitions exclusively refer to hook tape and loop tape as needed in their specifications.

Pro-tip: I work very hard to help make generic the trademarks of corporations I think are evil (and vice-versa for ones I like).

It's a free, cheap, and easy way to fight back.

To the great annoyance of many, I even usually google for things with DuckDuckGo. :)

Going to have to xerox this for my wall.

Someone ought to give them a kleenex for all of their boo-hooing.

Some young folks probably need to google what xeroxing means

But after the changing pampers, please.

It is the Cadillac of search engines, after all-- a real doozy.

I laughed so hard that I needed a bandaid.

Whoa buddy, let's do a quick zoom first.

> you diminish the importance of our brand and our lawyers lose their insert fastening sound.

I understand why they’re doing it and maybe in 2017 general mood was a bit different but right now there are people who would absolutely love to diminish the importance of a brand or two first thing in the morning even before their coffee. And they’re giving them ideas for free.

>Incorrect: I just bought some velcro shoes!

>Correct: I just bought some self-fastening shoes!

I will never say that

Imagine launching a campaign aimed at reducing brand dominance.

My n=1 experience is that when shopping for "hook and loop" strips online, I make sure that they are actual Velcro.

Beyond useless, I think that the attempt is misguided.

So, you can either try to change what's in the vocabulary of 300 million people for generations. Or change your brand name. They chose the first. Interesting.

That's trade mark laws for you. If you don't try and protect your trade mark at every opportunity it can be stripped from you and every Tom, Dick, and Harry can put out whatever they want with your name/term.

I get it, but still, that's the law for you. The most of us will still say Velcro because it's what we all know it as.

Oh goodness, will this hasten the velcropolipse?

I fear that whilst velcroing items I will forget the need to not mention velcro as in to velcro or the thing velcro itself and the words the VELCRO™ lawyers said about not saying velcro will slip from my mind like poorly velcroed shoes.

Does anyone else think their use of velcro in casual conversation will be affected? Has anyone tried to use velcro and suffered any fall out? I might have to Google it.

And that explains why lawyers will never get love or sympathy from most living creatures. They'll always have to sue for getting any kind of consideration. In my ideal world, they don't exist at all, or they're called mediators.

But let's be clear: this is an ad. And ad folks are the worst, worst than lawyer, just a notch above dirt. And btw, not buying velcro products anymore.

What exactly is so awful about this advertisement that it will cause you to never buy a product? It seemed super normal to me, do you just never buy products that advertise, or buy products that advertise using actors playing a lawyer?

In many other languages it is called "burdock tape" after the plant whose burrs was the inspiration behind the invention of velcro.

I'm just gonna call it "burtape" from now on. Easier to say than "hook-and-loop".

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm confused.

Do they lose their trademark if it gets used generically, or if they don't try to prevent that? Because common sense would imply the former, but then this video would just be a big admission that they already lost, no?

"Everywhere you go, you see this scratchy, hairy fastener and you say 'Hey, that's velcro!'"

You lose the right to defend your trademark if you don't make an effort to defend your trademark.

If 3M comes out with their own hook-and-loop fastener and calls it "3M Velcro", the court would say "you can't sue 3M over this since you clearly don't care when people say Velcro". This whole video is just to establish precedent.

You have to remember the purpose of trademarks -- they aren't primarily intended to benefit the trademark holder, they're intended as a consumer protection thing.

The idea is that you can rely on the name/packaging/etc. to actually indicate that the product was made by who you think it was made by.

If a trademark becomes generic enough, then it stops serving that purpose and so is no longer able to serve its protective function.

I can't tell if this is good marketing disguised as a joke or if it's just mega-out-of-touch cringe.

The former, but also it's CYA.

In Spanish it's officially "velcro" from the French abbreviation https://dle.rae.es/velcro and no alternative. About as generic as you get.

Speaking of velcro shoes, I inherited some velcro fastening trainers because my eldest kid felt he'd grown out of using them (he has the same size foot as me). I feel very self conscious wearing them in public because nobody wears velcro trainers. In the 6 months I've had them, I've been keeping an eye out in a busy European city, and I've seen just 1 person and that was a sort of work uniform shoe some guy had. Nobody has "fashion" velcro shoes. They do look kinda goofy I suppose.

Compare with "Prosecco" recently starting an advertising campaign on the London Underground[0] telling people to stop calling whatever generic, non-region protected sparkling wine they're drinking "Prosecco" because Prosecco is DOC protected.

Seems to me (despite the almost certainly valid legal points in the comments here) that the Velcro one is a bit tongue-in-cheek whereas I was slightly taken aback at how direct and earnest the Prosecco one seemed.

Net result will be the same though, I suspect.

[0] https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/12/26/italy-warns-britons-to...

I think the two videos from Velcro really hit the right spot between fun and educational.

I started watching the first video with a large amount of skepticism (soulless company paying millions to create viral video about something I couldn't care less about), but I really couldn't help but like both the videos and the company itself more now. Well done, I guess.

It is an interesting page because

* on the face of it, they are reminding people to not use their brand in a generic sense

* they also loaded it up with cutesy language. Maybe it is the most “meme-able” stuff legal would approve. “Don’t talk about me” is the best way to get talked about.

> Us lawyers have to protect our people. Using the VELCRO® trademark properly allows us to protect the integrity of the VELCRO® Brand and our trademark rights, and protect consumers from purchasing products incorrectly identified as VELCRO® Brand products. It’s, you know, the right thing to do.

One of my least favourite thing is when massive corporations use this kind of cutesy language. To me, it brings to mind the wolf from Little Red Riding hood wearing her grandmother's clothes.

If the sentence was honest, it'd be something more like:

> Us lawyers are paid money to facilitate the VELCRO megacorp to make even more money. If you threaten the megacorp by misusing our trademark, we will sue you into the ground, no matter who you are, and regardless of whether it's the "right thing" or not.

For those who haven't seen it before: If both surfaces you are fastening together are (relatively) rigid, then mushroom-head fasteners (e.g. 3M Dual Lock) have many advantages over hook-and-loop fasteners.

they should've had a longer name if they didn't want to become a noun

That ship has (mostly) sailed, but companies have lost their brand rights for failing to police uses. Did you know Aspirin was once a brand name for the acetylsalicylic acid product Bayer invented?

Similarly, many people who own vacuum cleaners which aren’t Hoover-branded still own hoovers and many chocolate and creme sandwich cookies which aren’t Oreo-branded are still oreos. I think some people in the US will refer to drinks which I call “soda” as “coke”. Like a “Sprite-coke” if you don’t want a cola.

This must be a page for VELCRO®’s lawyers to point to during relevant lawsuits because the argument otherwise seems like a lost cause.

Transformers do not transform but convert in Hasbro’s marketing and licensed materials, and strictly speaking they’re not even supposed to be Transformers but Transformers robots (which grammatically is wrong, but alas). Except, for whatever valid reason, inside the fiction, where Transformers becomes a perfectly valid noun they refer themselves with and they do transform, not convert, all day long. I don’t get it.

The decision to avoid use of the verb "to transform" is recent (2000s or 2010s), and probably due to legal troubles Hasbro's lawyers don't want to get into again. Recent Transformers media do eschew the usage of "transform" as a verb, preferring "convert" or "change form" instead. The part (organ?) that Cybertronians have that facilitates changing shape also had its name changed, from "transformation cog" in G1 to "conversion cog" in the War for Cybertron game. And Optimus Prime saying "Autobots, transform and roll out!" has gone the way of Mario saying "Yahoo!" (Nintendo feared trademark suits from the internet company Yahoo!).

The funny thing is, back in the days when Transformers transformed, their rivals the GoBots converted.

Probably different with Velcro, but in the case of Google wouldn't the term "google it" which just really means "search it on the internet" be extremely helpful? Helpful in ways very different from velcro or gilette (in many countries generic term for 'razor')

I’m assuming this is meant to be a joke.

No I think this is a good faith effort to protect their trademark

It won’t work, but legally if they don’t make an effort then they lose it by default.

There's a straussian dynamic at work here where the company wants to informally encourage generic use of their brand, but must also formally defend proper use of their brand for legal reasons. Courts need to see you at least appear to defend yourself.

Great. Hope this is real. I'd be impressed if the real lawyers did this.

There was a follow up video, also good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLWMQLMiTPk

In French c'est "le scratch".

Better than hook and loop!

PS: https://youtu.be/ZLWMQLMiTPk?feature=shared&t=111

In Serbia we never say Velcro but thistle stripe (burdock stripe). Interestingly enough, we say gilette for razor and digitron for calculator.

Trademarks that have conflict with common use words should have their vowels randomized: crovel, eppla, zonama, tema, etc.

Americans tend to use brand names instead of the words for things.. Xerox, Velcro etc...

We call it klittenband.. tangle band. Or tangle strip

Not only Americans, xerox is a word for copier in other languages. In Mongolia, it's canon instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

Imagine if OpenAI had named ChatGPT something that rolled off the tongue like Velcro. Missed opportunity.

It’s still memorable in at least one language: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/158e8os/in_case_an...

Ok, I’ll just find a hippier word to use to describe “hook and loop” so Velcro will lose their relevance.

ah let me get into my jeep to get some xeroxes of my opinion and drive to give them some kleenexes

No problem in France - the generic term for Velcro here is 'scratch'.

Klettverschluss in germany.

Klett comes from Arctium a plant with similar features (I guess) and verschluss is like the english term fastener or clasp.

Suchý zips in Slovak (lit. Dry zipper)

Which is ironic given 'velcro' is a deliberate portmanteau of 'velours crochet'

Many people in France say velcro though.

Velcro that. I intend to velcro velcro for the velcroing future.

I'm going to say it more now.

Velcro!

(2017)

This is humor, right?

yes, a cheeky CYA

This is literally a psyop. This is free marketing. Don’t fall for it.

“Still confused?” LOL, yes!

v e l c r o (r)

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