When is a xerox not a Xerox? Quite often, really. Any time you make a photocopy of a document on a Canon or a Hewlett-Packard or a Minolta, in fact. For Xerox is a brand and not a verb. In principle, you can no more "Xerox" something than you can "McDonald's," "Adidas," or "Home Depot" it. In practice, of course, people xerox at least as often as they photocopy--if only to save themselves a couple of syllables.
What's interesting is companies' changing attitudes towards such verbification. In the past, Xerox waged a fierce if ultimately futile campaign to discourage people from using their name as a verb. Their not unreasonable concern was that people would link their name with their competitors' products, thus undermining their marketing department's efforts to create a distinctive brand. Lawyers even have a term for this process: genericide; this is what happens when a brand name becomes associated with a "generic" product or action. Thus any photocopied material becomes a xerox; anything used to dull a headache is an aspirin (originally a trademarked term); any piece of tissue into which you deposit bodily fluids is a kleenex.
But far from seeing it as a death-knell, companies now are often indifferent to--or even enthusiastic supporters of--genericide. Rebecca Tushnet (and if ever a name deserved trademark protection, that's one!), a trademark law expert at Georgetown University, says, "What people know from marketing experience now and what people now understand as a practical matter is that it is very good when people use your name as a verb" (see "The Power of the Brand as Verb").
Perhaps no fiercer defender of corporate intellectual property exists than Microsoft. And yet, referring to the name of their new search engine, Bing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has expressed enthusiasm at the possibiliy of Bing to "verb up." Ballmer hopes that in the not-to-distant future, people will "bing" prospective employees, romantic partners, or even (especially) themselves.
In other words, Ballmer is really hoping that Bing will supplant Google--not just in terms of what people use to conduct internet searches, but in how they think of internet searches, period. But Microsoft's willingness (or hope) to be thought of in the same way as Google must not be seen so much as generous self-effacement or even resignation to the inevitable as a wish to reform their image: "See, the Evil Empire is really just like the 'Don't be evil' empire. Why google someone when you can bing 'em?"
No word yet on whether the Twitter people are going to attempt to trademark the verb "to tweet." Let's hope not. Just in case, though, the Solipsist is accepting contributions to a legal defense fund set up on behalf of birds.
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