When a Thermos Becomes a thermos

The Associated Press takes a look at products that become common nouns (coming soon - the ipad, rather than the iPad)?

From the story...

For the vast majority, the idea of a tablet is really captured by the idea of an iPad,'" says Josh Davis, a manager at Abt Electronics in Chicago. "They gave birth to the whole category and brought it to life."
Companies trip over themselves to make their brands household names. But only a few brands become so engrained in the lexicon that they're synonymous with the products themselves. This so-called "genericization" can be both good and bad for companies like Apple, which must balance their desire for brand recognition with their disdain for brand deterioration.

It's one of the biggest contradictions in business. Companies spend millions to create a brand. Then, they spend millions more on marketing that can have the unintended consequence of making those names so popular that they become shorthand for similar products. It's like if people start calling station wagons Bentleys. It can diminish a brand's reputation.