Frisbee, Jet Ski, and Dumpster—explore a list of words you might not realize are trademarked

'Genericide:' Learn how too much brand awareness can hurt a company's trademark

When a brand becomes so popular that consumers regularly call the product by the brand name like a noun or verb, that trademark becomes generic because consumers no longer associate a specific brand with a certain product. A generic product can hurt a company's right to trademark or even cause companies to lose it. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Explore a list of trademarked phrases

Trademarks can extend to phrases and slogans when the words become brand identifiers. Some phrases that have been trademarked are famed boxing announcer Michael Buffer's "Let's get ready to rumble!" and reality television star Paris Hilton's "That's hot."

Explore some of the trademarked scents in the US

Scents, when they are truly unique and identifiable to a particular brand, can be trademarked. Any trademark on a scent must pass two tests: distinctiveness and non-functionality. In order to be trademarked, the scent of a product can't be the primary purpose of that product (like a candle or a perfume), and the scent has to be distinct. Some of the trademarked scents include Play-Doh and the pain-relief patch Salonpas.

These famous brands used to have different names

Did you know that Nike used to be called Blue Ribbon Sports? Or that Google was originally named BackRub? Getting a brand's name right is a tough job; there's an entire cottage industry of brand naming agencies to prove it. See which brands got it right the first time—and which ones might be better off with their current names—in this article.

Frisbees are named after a pie company

The toy was based on pie tins manufactured by the Frisbie Pie Company. Students used to throw the used tins around, inspiring Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni to design a plastic version.

Many startup founders pull out-of-the-box stunts to get their businesses off the ground

Do you know Airbnb’s founders used cereal (yes, as in the breakfast food) to secure their initial round of funding? Or that PayPal’s founders once gave out free money to get people to sign up for the platform? These stories might be crazy, but they’re not uncommon.

Words used in cannabis business names

As selling recreational cannabis becomes legal in many states across the US, cannabis dispensaries are increasingly common. While one might expect each of these dispensaries to have vastly different names, one study found that the names have some consistent similarities. Businesses with "beach vibes" or "green" in the name seem particularly common. Explore the full data visual here.

Ten everyday NASA inventions (likely) in your home

As a public agency, NASA's goals aren't just in space, but for life on Earth, too. That's why so many everyday objects including memory foam, cordless tools, and golf balls are rooted in research first developed by space-faring engineers and scientists. Peruse this quirky list of some of those everyday objects destined for space that are also probably somewhere inside your home.

A children's toy inspired the name ‘Super Bowl’

The name “Super Bowl” was coined by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, who casually suggested it in 1966—riffing on his child’s Super Ball toy—after alternatives such as “The Big One” and “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” proved clunky and forgettable. The name was officially adopted for the third championship.

Non-use or lapsed filings can cause a trademark to expire

Going more than three consecutive years without using a trademark can be considered abandonment—which means the trademark falls into the public domain and someone else could potentially file for the trademark. Besides non-use, not maintaining the paperwork or paying the fees can result in a terminated trademark.

X Games emerged during “extreme” marketing boom in the 1990s

Launched as the “Extreme Games” in 1995, the event tapped into a trend from the '90s of brands labeling products and events “extreme” to appeal to youth culture—mirroring marketing in soft drinks, snacks, and video games.

NFTs have been leveraged by brands to represent physical and digital items

The buzz around non-fungible tokens has faded since 2021 to 2022, when brands including Prada and Starbucks launched their own NFTs. While Prada’s NFTs were linked to limited-edition fashion items, Starbucks’ were part of a loyalty program.

Bob's Discount Furniture was born from a motorcycle accident

Founder Bob Kauffman crashed his motorcycle and nearly required a leg amputation. After sleeping on a waterbed appeared to help his recovery, Kauffman decided to sell the beds. His authentic and frugal approach (and goofy commercials) led to quick growth.

'Hot dog' likely evolved from the common name 'dachshund sausages'

The ubiquitous handheld snack started in New York City, where vendors sold sausages in buns, calling out "Get your dachshund sausages!" Historians believe the change to "hot dog" was natural for many fans, who found the name funny and catchy.

A list of MBA jargon, complete with a ‘corporate BS generator’

From the classroom to the boardroom, MBA students hear plenty of corporate jargon in their lifetimes (think: “bandwidth,” “turnkey solution,” “modularize,” and more). This website—a relic from the internet—includes an MBA jargon dictionary and a corporate BS generator tool that creates helpful phrases for office life, like “incubate synergistic e-markets.”

The history of natural and synthetic plastics

From cheap toys to woolly jumpers, plastic can be found in more products than many people realize. From a chemist's perspective all these things are made of the same class of materials: Polymers. And the distinction between which ones we happen to call "plastics" and which ones we don't is fairly arbitrary.

The world of products surrounding tennis great Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic holds the most singles grand slam titles for men in history at 24. As a proud Serbian, the people of his smaller country take a special pride in Djokovic, and many of his family members and community have taken to using his name to develop products, from restaurants to cheese and wineries. This quick article breaks down Novak's role (or lack of) in those efforts.

Explore a list of well-known monopolies

Many American monopolies popped up during the rapid industrial growth of the Gilded Age. Industries like steel, tobacco, railroads, and telecommunication have all been monopolized at some point in history.

Jeep culture, explained

Jeeps originated as all-purpose vehicles in World War II and have since become the most common off-road vehicle. Owners greet each other with a wave, but there's a pecking order. Drivers of younger, less-modified models are expected to initiate the wave to older, vintage Jeeps. Also, all those rubber ducks are tokens left on that particular Jeep from admirers.

Not all companies with bank-sounding names are actually FDIC-insured banks

When purchasing a certificate of deposit, it's important to know if you are purchasing a “deposit” product issued by an FDIC-insured bank.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

How Sears helped create Discover Card

Sears owned the financial services company Dean Witter, which rolled out the Discover Card in 1986. The Discover Card is just one of many Sears inventions that seems to have outlasted Sears’ peak popularity, including Allstate Insurance and the clothing brand Lands End.

Trader Joe's isn't a public company, so it doesn't have to disclose its suppliers

However, when a product is recalled, the US FDA reveals the manufacturer. Business Insider dug into Trader Joe's recalled product history to figure out who is making its food. As it turns out, it's a multitude of suppliers, including big companies that make food for other grocers, such as PepsiCo's Naked Juice and Conagra.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

'Steamboat Willie' was the first film to feature Mickey Mouse

This short film introduced Mickey Mouse, the character who would define the Disney brand, to the world. It might be almost 100 years old, but you'll be surprised at how much humor still holds up.

Thousands of Atari cartridges were once buried in a New Mexico landfill

A waste management specialist unearthed a legendary cache of unsold games decades after they were buried, transforming one of gaming history's most famous disposal stories into an unexpected and lucrative salvage operation.

The surprising and strange sources behind 12 famous songs

Britney Spears's "Toxic" borrowed strings from a 1981 Bollywood film, Billie Eilish sampled The Office, and one duo made an entire album using only the sounds of their Whirlpool washing machine. Explore how sampling can pull from pretty much anywhere.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.