dragoncello

"A.Word.A.Day" is an email list that sends subscribers, well--a word a day. From Monday to Friday a word pops up in your mail box with definition and at least one example of its use in context. On the weekend, the list's owner/founder, Anu Garg, prints responses he's received during the week from subscribers.

One of his words last week was "Photoshop" used as a verb, and today, his weekend "Compendium of Feedback" included the following email to him from a person representing Adobe's Trademark and Marketing department, followed by Garg's response to her:


It has been brought to our attention that you have included Adobe’s Photoshop trademark in the Wordsmith “A.Word.A.Day” feature of your website. As you point out, the term is a registered trademark, owned by Adobe Systems Incorporated. As you may know, use of a trademark as a verb is improper use, which over time, can cause the trademark to cease to function as a trademark, and instead become a generic term. A trademark is correctly used as an adjective to indicate the source of a particular product, e.g., we enhanced the image using Photoshop image-editing software. We ask that you correct the “meaning” of the term by removing the verb reference and adding an adjective reference.
Laura Brou, Sr. IP Paralegal - Trademarks & Marketing, Adobe, Seattle, Washington

Thanks for writing. I know you have to do your job and send The Letter to show that you are making due efforts to prevent trademark dilution. I’m sympathetic to it.

It’s an unjust world. Some want to have enough to eat so as not to be underweight, while others would spend thousands of dollars to lose weight. Some companies encourage people to use their trademarks as verbs (“Do You Yahoo!?”, “Bing it”, etc.) and fail, while others see their trademarks being used as verbs and discourage that use.

Ultimately, language works not by legal letters or ad campaigns, but by how people use it. Today, google is a verb, so is photoshop. It’s too late now. The verb photoshop has entered Oxford, Collins, and Merriam-Webster, among other dictionaries. When lexicographers define a term, they only report reality, not create it. We can’t photoshop this reality.
-Anu Garg

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for posting. I posted the "photoshop" Word A Day article the day it appeared. I think Adobe is reaching a bit when they tell someone that they can't report on how "their word" is being used. I surprised they didn't begin a lawsuit.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Adobe has attorneys on the payroll to do just what they did. Of course, they know the popular use of the word "photoshop" is not going to go away, but they must do what they can to demonstrate they want to protect their trademark.

phkowalchuk Loc: Aurora, CO

These lawyers don't exist to sue people, except in egregious cases (where someone is using their name or something similar to their name to sell a product). The attorney who sent the letter was just taking a required step to be able to demonstrate that Adobe was taking appropriate steps to protect its intellectual property (in this case, their trademark) in case someone comes along and challenges their right to it. They don't want to have happen to them what happened to Kleenex, where they lost their trademark because they had allowed their mark to become a generic term. Loss of the Photoshop trade name/mark would be a huge financial loss to Adobe (IP is carried as an asset (goodwill) on a company's balance sheet).

So, bottom line, the attorney was just meeting the legal requirement to be able to show that Adobe had taken steps to protect the Photoshop trade name/mark.

I'm not a lawyer, but in my more than 35 years as a corporate communication professional, I developed trademarks and worked with many lawyers to fully understand what was required to protect my companies' intellectual property.

I hope this explanation is helpful.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Typical Corporate response. Look at Michael Jordon suing a grocery chain for using is picture in a advertisement. We have too many legal people.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

So do you think images of celebrities, or ordinary people, for that matter, should be able to be used in advertisements without their permission, implying they endorse the product?