Kleenex or kleenex?
By Marge Smith
Robyn Ratliff has been a member of RWA since 1996 and serves as the
Immediate Past President and Webmaster for
Authors. She is currently working on requested revisions. She writes
historicals set in Victorian England.
The following appears in
the April, 2004, issue of The Coastal
Connection. Please give proper credit when reprinting.
Does your heroine wipe her tears with a kleenex? Does your hero xerox
copies of his report for everyone at the meeting?
If they do, you are using trademarked words. In this day and age, when we
pick up catch phrases and buzz words on an almost daily basis from TV,
commercials, magazines, celebrities, music, etc, this is very easy to do.
So many brand names have become a part of our everyday vocabulary, words we
take for granted and use in a generalized form.
Here is just a small sampling;
Band-Aids Reeboks Formica
Rollerblades Ant Farm Coke
Sheetrock Xerox Velcro
Astro Turf Popsicle Teflon
Using trademarks names in your writing is perfectly acceptable, and you do
not put yourself at any legal risk. The owners of these trademarks ask only that
you capitalize them as necessary, spell them correctly, and do not use them in
generalized terms. Generalized use would be "Mary put a band-aid on her
child's cut knee." By using the lower case "b" you have relegated
it to a general description of any adhesive bandage.
Note: Harlequin/Silhouette does and does not allow the use of trademark
words, according to the line. To be accurate, read the line you are
targeting.
For more trademark names and words, go to h
<http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm>
ttp://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm
<http://www.inta.org/tmcklstl.htm>
http://www.inta.org/tmcklstl.htm
Marge Smith, who writes for Harlequin American as Elizabeth Sinclair, is
president of the First Coast Romance Writers and past Region 3 Director for RWA.
