Google avoided the ignominious fate of losing its trademark due to genericide. %CUT% Trademark protection extinguishes when the trademark becomes interchangeable with the name of the product or service. This process is called “genericide”. Some famous examples of genericide are aspirin for pain reliever, cellophane for plastic wrap and thermos for a vacuum flask. Two people filed a proceeding with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel the Google trademark due to it having become a generic word for searching on the Internet. The TTAB denied the cancellation and the plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court affirmed the TTAB. The Court’s opinion stated that even though the public might use the term as a verb, the Google mark could still serve as a source identifier.