https://consumerist.com/2017/08/21/scotus-may-decide-if-to-google-is-a-generic-term/ >Earlier this year, a federal court decided that while “googling” is a popular phrase that means “to search for something online,” that doesn’t mean the company should lose its trademark protection. Now the people behind that case have filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that the Supremes will agree that a verbed brand name is a generic term. >“Genericide” is when a word begins as a brand, but later becomes a generic term used to describe all brands of that thing. Think of trampolines, laundromats, aspirin, or escalators — all terms that started as brand names, but are now generic nouns.