Protecting your brand name

What happens when your company brand name becomes part of the public domain? Do you complain? Do you contact your lawyers? Do you thank your customers and then thank your lucky (hah!) stars that you are a verb?

Ask Google and Apple. No easy answer, you say? It's called protecting your brand? But what about the lawyers? Do we worry about what they do to your brand? Really, are they stewards of your brand or are they about risk management?

You enjoy your verb status in the beginning but then you are past the point of no return. Does your brand name belong to the world or can you (or rather your lawyers) reclaim it?

It's called being a victim of your own success. Albeit one that nobody feels sorry for.

What's a brand to do? It's a quandry.