Product names as adjectives?

[Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- MARVIN -dot- ENG -dot- SUN -dot- COM>]

J M Forsyth said:

>Fair enough, but consumers/those interested in the state of the language
>are surely entitled to some give-and-take. That is, there are cases of
>corporations registering ordinary phrases and  thus taking them out of the
>language. The legality of doing so is to say the least ambiguous, but if,
>e.g., Microsoft choose to trademark the plain english sentence 'Where do
>you want to go today?', people on the other side may feel justified in
>appropriating copyrighted names as useful additions to the common
>vocabulary.
>

This is the reason that the Legal Department at Sun refuses to
recognize Microsoft's attempted trademark of "Windows."

-- Janice

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