Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

As I said in another message, the USPTO doesn't seem to have any
problem writing it that way, so I wouldn't worry.

Okay, were into IANAL territory here, but my understanding is that the
name of a company is not a trademark.  It may resemble or be
indentical to a trademark they own, but the trademark is on the use of
the word or phrase with respect to a particular good or service.  So
referring to the company itself in the style they like is pretty much
just courtesy.  (And courtesy that's often not followed.  I work for a
company called "Hewlett-Packard" and abbreviated "HP".  Financial
people routinely refer to it as "Hewlett", as if one of them had been
the senior partner rather than having the order determined by a coin
flip, and many newspapers insist on abbreviating it as "H-P".  Both of
these grate, but I don't know of any official complaints.)

It's a little trickier when you're talking about products, like
"iPalm", because there you're referring specifically to the product
covered by the trademark.  I suspect that your house style is to
respect the preferred styling, although I doubt that anybody has ever
had problems with, say "COCA-COLA" in a headline.

Sort of, but not necessarily to say that they had any actual claim
against the publishers.  You have to prevent the word from "[becoming]
the generic name for the goods or services ... for which it is
registered" (15 USC 1064).  In the case of something like "escalator",
it wasn't "rigorously enough" not because they didn't meet some legal
standard for rigorousness but rather because it manifestly did become
the generic and ceased to be identified with their particular product.

There's another reason, though, from the same section, that they might
*have to* complain.  You also can lose the mark

   if the registered mark is being used ... with the permission of
   the registrant so as to misrepresent the source of the goods or
   services on or in connection with which the mark is used.

It wouldn't surprise me that if they didn't have a pattern of
complaining whenever they saw somebody use the word "escalator" to
refer to a moving stairway that wasn't one of theirs it would be
construed as "giving permission" for the use.  

Entirely so for the pedants who inhabit AUE, less so for an ordinary
AUE Joe like myself more interested in writing than in rolling bits of
toilet paper into tiny balls then sticking them in my nose or in my
ears.