Popular Brands Work to Keep Trademarks as Peloton Strikes at One

Owners want their brand everywhere, but Peloton Interactive Inc.'s bid to cancel “spinning” trademarks reminds companies they must manage threats of a certain kind of pervasiveness—a mark that ends up defining a product, not its producer.

Peloton has petitioned to cancel Mad Dogg Athletic’s “spin,” “spinning,” and “spin fitness” trademarks. It argued consumers see the terms as meaning stationary bikes and their use, not a brand.

If the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agrees, it would push Mad Dogg into a club of ex-protected brands like trampoline, escalator, and zipper. All outgrew reference to a single company. That outcome is ...