Lawyers for Velcro use music video to offer thanks for angry feedback on trademark plea
[Kip Currier: Interesting to see this "music video about a trademark plea" by VELCRO Brand Fasteners. During a guest lecture on Trademarks and Patents for undergraduate students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information earlier this week, I mentioned VELCRO as an example of a company trying to avoid the fate of becoming a "generic mark" through "genericide".
As Tom Kulik writes in a 7/2/18 article, "Losing Your Brand Identity: How To Commit Trademark Genericide Without Really Trying", for Above The Law, "acceptance that rises to the level of identification with the specific good or service (as opposed to the source of such goods or services) is the death knell for trademarks."
Examples of generic marks include Aspirin, cellophane, escalator, trampoline, and zipper.
I first became aware of VELCRO's genericide-avoidance efforts when I spoke with a VELCRO Representative working at the company's booth for the 2016 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's National Trademark Expo in Washington, D.C. I was able to find in my 2016 National Trademark Expo Swag Bag the informational pamphlet VELCRO passed out at the Expo:
I was invited by the VELCRO Rep to take the VELCRO Hook and Loop Challenge...
Using 3 different types of VELCRO of varying strength...
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| VELCRO Samples, 2016 USPTO National Trademark Expo, (c) James "Kip" Currier |
I mentioned that I teach IP Law at Pitt and the VELCRO Rep nicely gave me 3 samples to take back to show.
The white-and-green-striped VELCRO rolls (in the upper right section of the above photo of the 3 samples) are freebie samples that the VELCRO booth persons were also passing out to National Trademark Expo attendees.]
"Those aren’t lawyers on Velcro Companies’ new music video thanking the public for its angry feedback. They are actors playing lawyers.
But in-house lawyers were involved in the making of the video, Corporate Counsel reports. And they believe the company’s “Don’t Say Velcro” campaign has been successful, even if some people did have a negative, F-bomb-loaded reaction to its plea to save its trademark.
Velcro wants people to use VELCRO® Brand (as an adjective, as in “VELCRO® Brand fasteners) when referring to its product, and to use “hook and loop” when referring to scratchy, hairy fasteners made by other companies.
Velcro released an initial video last September in which actors playing lawyers explain in song that the Velcro patent has lapsed and the company will lose its trademark if the word is used to refer to all hook-and-loop fasteners. Some actual in-house lawyers also made appearances in the original video."
“We’re asking you not to say a name it took 50 plus years to build,” one character sings. “But if you keep calling these Velcro shoes, our trademark will get killed.”"
