From: kehoea@parhasard.net   
      
    Ar an naoú lá is fiche de mí Bealtaine, scríobh Ross Clark:   
      
    > "The world's first moving-step machine...demonstrated at a Paris trade fair   
   in   
    > 1900..."   
    > The trademark was registered by Charles Seeberger, who worked for the Otis   
    > Elevator Company.   
    >   
    > "The use of capital letters and inverted commas shows the word's special   
    > status." (Crystal)   
    >   
    > BUT fifty years later (in _Haughton Elevator Co. v. Seeberger_), Otis lost   
   the   
    > rights because the court ruled the word had become generic.   
    > "A crucial piece of evidence was the way Otis itself was using it, in such   
    > advertisements as:   
    > 	To thousands of building owners and managers, the Otis trademark   
    >         means the utmost in safe, efficient economical elevator and   
    >         escalator operation."   
      
   Otis is impressive as a business, still with a huge proportion of the lifts out   
   there all these years later, when so many other similar businesses have been   
   outcompeted by East Asian manufacturers.   
      
   --   
   ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /   
   How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’   
   (C. Moore)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)