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> I don't think trademarks can lapse in the US

You can lose your trademark protection if the term becomes genericized and you fail to police its use. It's exceedingly rare for this to happen, the law isn't clear-cut, and different courts have ruled differently in similar cases, but it is technically possible. Velcro doesn't have to rabidly attack everyone trying to genericize its brand, and so long as they are still using it themselves and making some occasional effort to legally defend it, they're fine. But if other brands started calling their products "velcro" in the generic sense, and Velcro ignored it for a decade or more, they could in fact lose the trademark entirely.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...




>and you fail to police its use //

I think you're wrong here.

Genericisation isn't a function of your policing of your mark.

The only other way to lose a mark is not pay your fees, you can police it as loosely as you like.

What being heavy handed does is increase damages and inhibit allowed usage that a company is not in control of.

I think this is one of the greatest misunderstandings about RTMs.

(I'm only really familiar with the USA and UK IP laws, know something of European and EU regulations, not much beyond that.)




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