Earlier this year, comedian Seth Meyers was making a joke about a politician on his talk show “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” In doing so, he referred to a well-known brand of popular plastic building bricks as “Legos.” Meyers was immediately flooded with online comments telling him that the plural of Lego is Lego. He took to the air waves again on the topic, thanking the commenters but adding “It’s too late for me … I’m not going to walk home and tell my kids ‘Clean up your Lego.’” Not long after, the owner of the world-famous Lego trademark got into the act via a tweet, saying “Hey @SethMeyers, let us blow your mind … the plural is not ‘Legos.’ It’s not even ‘Lego.’ It’s actually ‘LEGO BRICKS!’” @LEGO_Group, Twitter (Feb. 11, 2021), https://twitter.com/lego_group/status/1359856214591627269.

In setting Meyers straight, the Lego Group was following the conventional wisdom that to preserve trademark rights and prevent genericide, a trademark needs to be used as an adjective, followed by the generic descriptor—just as we have Band-Aid bandages, Rollerblade in-line skates, and Velcro hook-and-loop fasteners. This last one met with some fanfare in 2017 when Velcro Companies’ in-house and outside counsel got together to make “Don’t Say Velcro,” a lighthearted music video to educate the public, complete with a banner showing their name, logo and the statement “We ® the World.”