R.I.P. Murphy Bed
Sold from 1918 · generic in the United States since 1989
The story
William Murphy's fold-away bed. The USPTO refused to register the term in 1981 and 1982 on the ground that it was generic, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed in 1984, and in 1989 the Second Circuit finished the job: the term had been "expropriated by the public". To the public, any bed that folds into a wall is a murphy bed, whoever builds it. Murphy Door Bed Co. v. Interior Sleep Systems, Inc., 874 F.2d 95 (2d Cir. 1989).
The moral
It folded. Into the wall, and in court.
One grave, one country. Genericide is decided jurisdiction by jurisdiction and class by class: the same word can be the generic name of a product in one country and a live registered mark for the same goods in another. What is described here is the United States.