Zyklon is just the German word for "cyclone." Fairly innocuous, one might think, until you remember that most of the rest of the world associates
Zyklon with Zyklon B, a pesticide that the Nazis found to be efficient when blown into gas chambers. One could safely say that
Zyklon has just a bit of baggage with it, which is why it was quite surprising when, earlier in this decade, the good folks at Siemens (who themselves have some Holocaust-related baggage) decided to apply with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the right to use the name
Zyklon on a broad range of consumer products.
Fail.
One of those products was a gas oven.
Extreme fail.
Siemens (or Bosch Siemens Hausgeraete, as the consumer products venture is known) already marketed a line of vacuum cleaners in its domestic market using the name Zyklon, but again, Zyklon simply means cyclone, so it actually fit as the vaccums are bagless, "cyclone" style units.
The gas oven idea, though, is a real head scratcher.
Siemens withdrew its application and subsequently claimed it never intended on trademarking the Zyklon name for use in the U.S. Nice try.
No comments:
Post a Comment