I have to imagine that, last Wednesday night, lawyers and advertising executives for Xerox Corporation went into collective apoplexy when Hillary Clinton made her now infamous “Change you can Xerox” comment.

Many of you may remember the ad campaign “You can’t Xerox a Xerox on a Xerox.”  Many more of you probably don’t, but more on that in a moment.  Xerox has spent much time, effort, and money trying to convince the public not to use “Xerox” as a verb (or for that matter, a noun), and the reason is an obscure principle of trademark law known as “Trademark Dilution.” 

Trademarks like “Xerox” are what IP lawyers call “distinctive”: they are unique combinations of letters that have no meaning prior to their use on a product.  Other examples include Kodak, Kleenex, Cadillac, Ikea and Xbox.  Trademarks are meant to help the public identify quality products associated with a particular manufacturer.  But where a distinctive term becomes synonymous in the general public not with a manufacturer but with a type of product, the doctrine of Trademark Dilution says that the brand has lost its distinctiveness and the trademark can be revoked.

Once upon a time, a thermos was a Thermos TM brand insulated bottle, cellophane was Cellophane TM brand plastic wrap, and aspirin was Aspirin TM brand acetylsalicylic acid.  But those trademarks became diluted, and now anyone in the U.S. can manufacture thermoses, cellophane, and aspirin.  Heck, these uncapitalized words are such a part of the fabric of our society now that my spell-checker doesn’t even blink at them.  But just try typing “xerox” into your MSWord TM. 

Xerox had been so successful in its photocopy machine division that, starting in the Sixties and cutting through to the early Nineties, people commonly referred to photocopies as “xeroxes” and the act of photocopying as “xeroxing.” Xerox’s trademark was in very real danger of becoming generic.  So beginning in the 1980’s, Xerox Corporation launched a major advertising campaign designed to keep “Xerox” from becoming “generic”.  The future of their corporation depended upon it. 

Why does this matter to the political junkies out there in TPM-land?  Because Xerox’s efforts were ultimately successful.  There may still be pockets of resistance out there, but when was the last time someone in your office said “Go xerox this for me”?  Chances are, if someone in your office still uses “xerox” in this way, they are over fifty and a little bit out of touch.

Hillary’s attempt at snark only scored points among the 50+ set.  The comment rang as woefully out of touch to the 25 to 50 group.  And people under 25 probably didn’t even get the reference.  “Change you can Xerox,” as much as anything else Clinton has said this campaign season, reinforced the generational divide separating Clinton supporters from Obama supporters.

I imagine that, if the situation had been reversed, Obama would have said something like “You can’t Ctrl-C change.”