Test your trademark knowledge - Emphasis

Test your trademark knowledge Test your trademark knowledge How much attention do you pay to trademarks? Mistakenly use one to refer to a generic product, and you can land yourself with a letter from the company concerneds trademark lawyers, and the need to write embarrassing apologies. While its OK to tweak trademarks slightly to bring them into line with standard English (for example More Than, rather than MORE THN), its not OK to use a trademarked name to describe a product not made by that company. In some cases, the horse has already bolted Hoover is now almost synonymous with vacuum cleaner, for example, regardless of the brand. But use Thermos to describe a vacuum flask not made by Thermos and youre on dodgy ground. Take our quiz to see how trademark-aware you are. For each item, decide whether its a current trademark, a lapsed trademark or a red herring. To make it more difficult, weve written them all with an initial capital. After you submit your answers, youll get an explanation of each one. JacuzziCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedCokeCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedHot DogCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedAspirinCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedLycraCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedTetra PakCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedEscalatorCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedBiroCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedHeroinCurrently trademarked Previously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedTannoyCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedMopedCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarkedPortalooCurrently trademarkedPreviously trademarked but now genericNever trademarked *Note: all answers accurate at the time of writing