h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm surprised to see that a company (TDV) which offers such fierce words in defense of its own trademark did not see fit to note anywhere that "Band-Aid" is a registered trademark of Johnson & Johnson.

Perhaps they thought, as I did, the word "bandaid" is synonymous with "sticking plaster" (and thus has entered common parlance). Certainly it is where I come from, even if I'm talking about or in fact using another brandname. I did toy with the idea of changing the name to "Bandaids or Sticking Plasters", but the motivation (which I admit wasn't great) was purely to avoid any misunderstanding about the subject matter.

I really don't know what the legal standing is, I mean, did BandAid (the pop music one by Bob Geldof) have to pay a royalty or sign a licencing deal?

Trademarks generally only cover products in the same field, so the use of Bandaid for a band doesn't conflict with J&J's trademark.

Band-Aid (R) as a brand name for sticking plasters is a legally registered trademark of Johnson & Johnson, and it is their right to sue anyone who uses it without the circled R symbol (or (R) in text). It's not legally a generic term, no matter how commonly it is used. Now, if they were to not sue other manufacturers who used the term it would eventually lose its trademark protection, but that hasn't happened.

But then there are already quite a few Entries using brandnames. Surely the same questions must have been asked about them and they do ask questions - remember the debate about the Forum & Firkin?

I guess it depends how nasty J&J is in regards to casual use of the name. I know some groups have gone to great lengths to shut down any external mention of their product whatsoever (eg Paramount re: Star Trek, Scott Adams re: Dilbert, Disney re: anything in the known universe, but recently Hunchback).

From what I've heard of these sorts of cases, the 'offenders' get sent a few threatening letters, asking them to remove the infringing material. It would be a simple matter just to replace bandaid with sticking plaster.

Hi ffmike! You don't really need the (R) as long as it is capitalized in some way to denote that it is a brand name. Not unlike Dumpster, which is also a trademark.... Though that one gets dropped a lot. There is a trademark resource somewhere on the web that I have bookmarked at the office for when I'm working on a news story and the AP stylebook also contains a goodly amount of trademarked names in it.

I made the same point in another forum attatched to this entry! But good catch...

- X

I wonder if this has happened to Hoover. I'm not sure that any other manufacturer uses the term in their advertising, but I know that the word has become synonymous with 'vacuum-cleaner'. Lots of people talk about 'hoovering the carpet', fewer about 'vacuuming the carpet'.

Huh, I just checked the Chicago Manual of Style and you're right...capitalisation is sufficient. Learn something new every day. I still think it would be nice to footnote the first mention with "Band-Aid is a registered trademark of Johnson & Johnson".

Is the AP stylebook online anywhere?

Aah, stylebooks, the last journalistic line of defence against being fired or sued...

I had a brief look for it last night, but coudn't find an online version. Could probably purchase a copy somewhere.

And (believe it or not) Styrofoam is a trademark for a brand of 'plastic foam'....

And ffmike, I'm not sure about the AP Stylebook being online, but I've got two in my office. You might want to check out http://www.theslot.com it's a good one!!

Thanks for the pointer. I've just added it to my weblog page (http://www.larkfarm.com/weblog.asp ) to pass it on to other folks.

Had a poke around AP's web site at http://www.ap.org . It looks like they're still trying to make money off the dead tree version of the Stylebook; you can order copies there, but there's no hint of it being available online. Too bad.