Second, Canonical is not “required” to enforce its mark in every instance or risk losing it. The circumstances under which a company could actually lose a trademark—such as abandonment and genericide—are quite limited. Genericide occurs when a trademark becomes the standard term for a type of good (‘zipper’ and ‘escalator’ being two famous examples). This is very rare and would not be a problem for Canonical unless people start saying “Ubuntu” simply to mean “operating system.” Courts also set a very high bar to show abandonment (usually years of total non-use). Importantly, failure to enforce a mark against every potential infringer does
not show abandonment.
1 As one court
explained:
The owner of a mark is not required to constantly monitor every nook and cranny of the entire nation and to fire both barrels of his shotgun instantly upon spotting a possible infringer.
Quite simply, the view that a trademark holder must trawl the internet and respond to every unauthorized use (or even every infringing use) is a myth. It’s great for lawyers, but irritating and expensive for everyone else. And when done clumsily or maliciously, it chills free expression.
