Google's Reorganization Under Alphabet: A Move To Prevent 'Genericization'?

New York Times columnist Jim Stewart published an article on Thursday titled ' Even in the New Alphabet, Google Keeps Its Capital G' in which he argued that the key reason behind Google Inc GOOGL reorganizing its business under Alphabet can be that it wants to prevent the 'genericization' of its brand.

Stewart was on CNBC recently to explain what genericization means and how changing to Alphabet solves the problem for Google.

What Is Genericization

"(Genericization) is the process by which a trademark brand name enters the language and becomes generic. And I didn't even realize -- it's one of the odd things about English and American Laws -- that is your brand is so successful that it actually kind of [cops] over and become a generic part of the language, you lose the brand, you lose the trademark, anybody can use it."

He continued, "Its happened to a lot of words. Even Webster's dictionary is now generic, Webster's is generic for dictionary. So, anybody can put out a Webster's dictionary even though Encyclopaedia Britannica owns the trademark."

Google's Problem

"Google has this problem. I assume we all use it, I use it as a verb, as a verbal, as a participle, as a noun of course. And that raises the threat that it's going to lose the trademark protection at some point maybe not in the too distant future. Changing to Alphabet solves that problem to some extent. Ther's no real danger that Alphabet is going to become generic, it already is generic," Stewart concluded.