Generic trademarks

A generic trademark occurs when a brand name becomes so popular that it starts to refer to an entire category of products rather than a specific company's offering. For example, “aspirin” was once a registered trademark but has become a general term for a type of pain reliever. When a brand name becomes generic, it loses legal protection as a trademark because it no longer identifies a single source, but rather a class of similar products. This process highlights how familiar brand names can sometimes overstep their original distinctiveness and become the common term for an entire product type.