Word.ws English Dictionary

genericide

genericide noun: the process by which trademark rights are diminished or lost as a result of common use in the marketplace.

Noun

genericide (countable and uncountable, plural genericides)

  1. (trademark law) The process by which trademark rights are diminished or lost as a result of common use in the marketplace.
    • Of course, the irony is that genericide occurs at the very moment a product manager's dream comes true and the product brand becomes synonymous with the product itself.2007, Paul Goldstein, Intellectual Property: The Tough New Realities That Could Make or Break Your Business, Penguin, →ISBN
    • A legal determination of genericide is an instantaneous elimination of the associations between mark and product built up in the minds of consumers.2008, Graeme B. Dinwoodie, Mark D. Janis, editors, Trademark Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research, Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 87
  2. (uncommon) The act or process of letting a trademark term become so common that the trademark is indefensible.

Examples of genericide in a sentence

  • Imagine the glee in Microsoft headquarters if Google lost its trademark protection to genericide.2009 July 18, Noam Cohen, “The Power of the Brand as Verb”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • Escalator, cellophane, and laundromat have all lost their trademark status to genericide.2019 June 25, Whitson Gordon, “How a Brand Name Becomes Generic”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Synonyms of genericide

Forms of genericide

pluralgenericides

Origin of genericide

From generic + -cide.

Questions about genericide

What does genericide mean?
Genericide means the process by which trademark rights are diminished or lost as a result of common use in the marketplace.
How do you use genericide in a sentence?
Imagine the glee in Microsoft headquarters if Google lost its trademark protection to genericide.
What part of speech is genericide?
Genericide is a noun.
What is the plural of genericide?
The plural of genericide is genericides.

Words near genericide in the dictionary

  1. Generica
  2. generical
  3. generically
  4. genericalness
  5. generich
  6. genericide
  7. genericides
  8. genericise
  9. genericised
  10. genericised trademark
  11. genericised trademarks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: genericide (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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