The following partial list contains marks which were originally legally protected trademarks, but which have subsequently lost legal protection as trademarks by becoming the common name of the relevant product or service, as used both by the consuming public and commercial competitors. These marks were determined in court to have become generic. Some marks retain trademark protection in certain countries despite being declared generic in others.
Aspirin
Still a Bayer trademark name for acetylsalicylic acid in about 80 countries, including Canada and many countries in Europe, but declared generic in the U.S.
Catseye
Originally a trademark for a specific type of retroreflective road safety installation.
Cellophane
Still a registered trademark of Innovia Films Ltd in Europe and many other jurisdictions. Genericized in the U.S. Originally a trademark of DuPont. A thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose.
Dry ice
Trademarked by the Dry Ice Corporation of America in 1925. A solid form of carbon dioxide.
Escalator
Originally a trademark of Otis Elevator Company.
Flip phone
Originally a trademark of Motorola.
Flit gun
Originally trademarked as a dispenser for Flit, a brand of insecticide manufactured by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Exxon).
Heroin
Trademarked by Friedrich Bayer & Co in 1898. Trademark lost in some nations in the Treaty of Versailles, in 1919.
Kerosene
First used around 1852.
Lanolin
Trademarked as the term for a preparation of water and the wax from sheep's wool.
Laundromat
Coin laundry shop. Westinghouse trademark, registered in the U.S. in the 1940s (automatic washing machine) and 1950s (coin laundry) but now expired.
Linoleum
Floor covering, originally coined by Frederick Walton in 1864, and ruled as generic following a lawsuit for trademark infringement in 1878; probably the first product name to become a generic term.
Mimeograph
Originally trademarked by Albert Dick. A low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper.
Sellotape
Sellotape is a British brand of transparent, cellulose-based, pressure-sensitive adhesive tape, and is the leading brand in the United Kingdom. Sellotape is generally used for joining, sealing, attaching and mending. The term has become a genericised trademark in the UK, Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Israel, India, Serbia, Japan, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, and is used much in the same way that Scotch Tape came to be used in Canada and the United States, in referring to any brand of clear adhesive tape.
Spidola
A brand created by the Latvian manufacturer VEF, but widely used in Russian to refer to all transistor radios.
Thermos
Originally a Thermos GmbH trademark name for a vacuum flask; declared generic in the U.S. in 1963.
Trampoline
Originally a trademark of the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Company
Videotape
Originally trademarked by Ampex Corporation, an early manufacturer of audio and video tape recorders.
The following partial list contains marks which were originally legally protected trademarks, but which have subsequently lost legal protection as trademarks due to abandonment, non-renewal or improper issuance (the generic term pre-dated the registration). Some marks retain trademark protection in certain countries despite being generic in others.
App
Trademark claimed by Apple, Inc.; cancelled.
App Store
Trademark claimed by Apple Inc. for their digital distribution platform. Apple filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com over
Appstore for Amazon, but abandoned the trademark and the lawsuit after an early rejection of Apple's false advertising claim in the lawsuit. However, it was reclaimed, and it remains a service mark of Apple Inc.
Multiball
Used to refer to a state on a pinball machine where two or more balls are present on the playfield simultaneously and can be accessed by the flippers. Trademarked by WMS Industries in 1981 as "Multi-ball" and by Templar Studios in 2000 as "Multiball." "Multiball" was abandoned as a trademark in 2001, and "Multi-ball" was canceled in 2002.
Touch-tone
Dual tone multi-frequency telephone signaling; AT&T states "formerly a trademark of AT&T".
Webster's Dictionary
The publishers with the strongest link to the original are Merriam-Webster, but they have a trademark only on "Merriam-Webster", and other dictionaries are legally published as "Webster's Dictionary".
Yo-Yo
Still a Papa's Toy Co. Ltd. trademark name for a spinning toy in Canada, but was determined that the trademark was improperly issued.
ZIP code
Originally registered as a service mark but has since expired.
Zipper
Originally a trademark of B.F. Goodrich for use in rubber boots.
Marks in this partial list are still legally protected as trademarks, at least in some jurisdictions, but are sometimes used by consumers in a generic sense. Unlike the names in the list above, these names are still widely known by the public as brand names, and are not used by competitors. Scholars disagree as to whether the use of a recognized trademark name for similar products can truly be called "generic", or if it is instead a form of synecdoche.
The previous list contains trademarks that have completely lost their legal status in some countries, while the following list contains marks which have been registered as trademarks, continue in use, and are actively enforced by their trademark owners. Writing guides such as the AP Stylebook advise writers to "use a generic equivalent unless the trademark is essential to the story".
Please note that other generic terms may be equally appropriate.
