Watercraft or “Jet Ski”: Which term to use?

Recently, the Kawasaki company expressed objection to the inappropriate use of its “Jet Ski” brand by a famous Brazilian News program. After that, the matter gained prominence on social media, with many users admitting they were unaware that the term was, in fact, a registered trademark and not a generic name for the product.

In many situations, the association between brands and generic terms can be positive for a company, with the use of the brand name even being encouraged among the population. However, in the mentioned case, the company chose to speak out because the brand was being associated with an offense involving a watercraft that was not even from the company.

According to Brazilian Industrial Property Law, companies have the right to safeguard the integrity and reputation of their brands. Thus, Kawasaki exercised this right, guaranteed by the registration, to dissociate its name from the news.

Finally, the newspaper announced that it would no longer use the “Jet Ski” brand in its reports from that point forward. This raises the question of which other brand names we use in our daily lives to replace generic names of products or services without exclusively associating them with the companies they belong to. Besides, what legal implications could arise from this use, especially when done by companies for commercial purposes?

To learn more about this topic, contact us by email at info@simoesadv.com.

#industrialproperty #trademark #intellectualproperty