Making Custom PCB's

petethegeek:

JoeN:
Sharpie® is a trademark. By definition, all Sharpie®s are name-brand. :grin:

http://www.sharpie.com/enMY/SharpieInfo/Pages/Trademark.aspx

Gotta go now, taking trash out to the Dumpster®...

It appears that, whilst Sharpie® enjoys full trademark protection, Dumpster® is now regarded as a 'genericized trademark' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster

(I'm not sure why, but I'm still a little bit startled by the fact that there exists such a comprehensive wiki entry on Dumpsters.)

Not to beat a dead horse, oh, ok, maybe to beat it a little, but it looks the the owner of Dumpster® trademark the has kept it renewed at least:

http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72137327&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch

So I guess it is still a trademark. Not to say that maybe in certain ways it is genericized too. Maybe there is grey area there. IANAL.