Or when you order a coke and the waitress says, "is Pepsi OK?"

The last one really boils me. I understand that the waitress has to say it because sometimes you get customers who do really have a preference, but it just irritates me that those customers have to make the ordering process harder for the rest of us.

It's not a customer preference thing. It's a trademark dilution thing. Essentially, if you ask for a Coke, and the restaurant gives you Pepsi, Coke are going to get annoyed. They've invested a fortune in that name, and having it used to describe other, similar, products negates this expenditure on brand-awareness. Pepsi will probably get annoyed as well. I'm sure they've got an inferiority complex about being the "other cola" anyway.

On top of that, if a company doesn't defend their trademarks, they stand the chance of losing them completely. I think it was Hoover, but I could be wrong, that sued someone for using the name, and failed to get any recompense because they'd not been sufficiently conscientious about protecting their trademark.

Which is why a lot of stuff has TM all over it these days.




Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg