A term that is generic for goods or services offered cannot be trademarked. A way a business can lose its trademark is through a concept known as genericide. Genericide is somewhat of a happy problem because it occurs when a business becomes so ubiquitous that the trademark becomes the generic term for the product or service. In the past, this has occurred with terms such as aspirin, escalator, flip phone, and dry ice.
Today, Google, Uber, Band-Aid, and Kleenex are examples of trademarks that are at risk of genericide. This is the reason that contrary to common practice, Google does not want you to say that you “googled” something, but that you looked something up on the Google search engine. Sometimes genericide looks like the trademark becoming a verb, such as when someone “Ubers” somewhere through using a ridesharing app.
