On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:45:56 GMT, John Doe
wrote:

inlina inlina gmail.com wrote:

On Jun 14, 7:37 pm, John Doe j... usenetlove.invalid wrote:

There probably are few people in the world who have never heard of
vice grips.

Umm, the generic name is not vice-grips, it is locking pliers or
lock-jaw pliers.

Very unlikely that is the name in Franklin's home country Norway. Even
if they don't go by the brand name "vice grips", they wouldn't use a
generic English term.

Therefore it is not the case that when you say vice-grips
that everyone in the world understands what you mean.

Highly likely that anyone in a non-English speaking country would
recognize "vice grips" before they recognized "locking pliers".

I tend to agree. I live in the USA and I've never heard of lock-jaw
pliers. Sears and I'm sure other sell a variety of locking pliers,
with clever designs, which might be very useful in some places where
vise-grips are not, but they are not vise-grips or imitations. The
vise-grip design is, all-in-all, the best and I'm sure it is what was
intended.

There is more than one product that is known outside of the US by an
American trade name. I have heard of 3 or 4, but the most recent one,
the only one I remember now is that baby food in general is referred
to as Gerbers, in Israel. I think others I found in Central America
35 years ago. I don't think legal issues about trademark are so
important for American brands outside of America, or these are just
different cases where enforcement has failed, like aspirin and maybe
Kleenex.

That's the issue.

In fact, more people in the world understand what you mean when you
say "vice grips" than they do when you say "locking pliers" or "lock
jaw pliers".

From the worldwide USENET archives.

Results 1 - 100 of about 8,930 for " Vise grips "

Results 1 - 100 of about 11,000 for " Vice grips "

More than the others!

Results 1 - 100 of 658 for " Locking pliers "

Results 1 - 37 of 37 for " lock jaw pliers "

Vice-grips came from Irwin's trademarked product 'Vise-grips',

Of course it did.