General Motors Wants Trademark for ‘Range Anxiety’

[msirach]

Tesla to trademark "Tesla Grin" next

Michael Ramsey - WSJ - September 01, 2010

What? A moot term trademarked? --Ed.

General Motors Corp. has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for permission to trademark the term “range anxiety,” a phrase company executives first started using after their experiences with the EV-1 electric car of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It refers to a driver’s fear of using the electric car for longer trips because there is no quick way to recharge if the battery runs down.

The move, reported first by Jalopnik.com, is presumably meant to allow GM to use the term in marketing for the Chevrolet Volt, which is an electric car that has a gas-engine that can generate electricity and extend the range. GM may also use the trademark to keep other companies from using the term.

Tesla Inc., the electric sports car maker had an amusing response to GM’s actions.... [Read More]

[Butterfly Mage]

I worry more about "bailout repayment anxiety".

[MaxxMPG]

Why "range anxiety"? It sounds more like a somebody who is afraid to use a stove.

A better idea would be dream up a phobia word - like "Distophobia" or fear of long distances with inadequate charging facilities.

Either way, the Volt will sell to people who need to travel more than 80-100 miles between charges, and the Leaf will sell to people who live in urban areas with recharge stations or to suburban homeowners where they can park the car in or near a garage to be 'refilled' by a home charging station.

[WriConsult]

No way should that phrase be allowed to become private intellectual property. It's in widespread use (among EV-aware folks) in the public domain already. But given our government's recent track record in granting private IP rights, I won't be surprised.

[MaxxMPG]

This makes me think of the time almost 20 years ago when Intel tried to trademark "586" because competitors had developed x86 processors and marketed them as "486" chips along Intel's "486". When they found out that you can't trademark a number, they spent a fortune marketing their new 586 as the "Pentium". Since early processors had a flaw in their arithmetic unit that caused errors during division, it didn't take long for the jokes to come along...
"Why did Intel call their new CPU the Pentium?" "Because they divided 1172 by 2 and got 585.9999999996"
With all the money spent on the "Pentium" name, they spent 10 years reusing it for all newer chips, with the 686 dubbed the "Pentium Pro" and so on.

If GM manages to trademark "range anxiety", I predict (and hope) the jokes start flowing. The public can effectively embarrass them into quietly dropping the phrase from their marketing materials.

[Butterfly Mage]

Well... You know damned well that Intell wasn't going to call an 80686 chip a "Sexium", har har.

[southerncannuck]

I remember when Harley Davidson tried to patent the potato potato sound that they make.

[msirach]

They patent their firing pattern. It expired a few years ago and Honda has a model that sounds the same now.