this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
402 points (98.8% liked)
Games
32371 readers
2087 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It’s not patents, it’s trademarks. Kleenex is the best example: Overuse of it as a generic term leads the company to call it “Kleenex brand”. Lego has fought this for years, with the boxes promoting calling them “Lego bricks”, lest all building bricks become generic “Legos”.
Patents expire after 17 years regardless of usage, trademarks can last forever.