A classic example of the process is the English word “escalator”. It was originally a registered trademark of the Otis Elevator Company, but because the term for every type of escalator enforced, a court decided in 1950that the brand loses its protection.
This process is called Genericide referred to, and numerous well-known terms have undergone this change, also in German usage:
- Tempo as a term for all handkerchiefs
- Tesa for all brands of adhesive tape
- Uhu for different adhesives
- Jeep as a name for off-road vehicle
- Labello for lip balm
Google started as early as 2003 Warnings against bloggers and website operators, who used “googling” in this sense. A particularly curious case occurred in Sweden in 2013: the Swedish Language Council wanted to officially add the word “ungoogleable” to its list of words.
However, Google intervenedas the term did not explicitly refer to its own search engine. The word “googling” has been in the German Duden since 2004 also to be foundbut not generally for internet searches, but with the description “Search the Internet with Google®”. The group implemented this adjustment in 2006.
A Arizona ruling in 2014 but shows that the Google brand remains protected despite its colloquial use. This means that not everyone is allowed to simply register their own websites with the name as part of the domain.
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