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I have a trademark issue involving the word "oilery" used as a noun to mean someone who produces or sells oils. I'm looking for examples of contemporary use. Any citations to articles, blogs, reviews of establishments, would be greatly appreciated. Especially helpful would be references to use in connection with cooking oils.
Welcome to the forum Bmcilnay. Wisconsin (Green Bay) was my original stomping grounds. The cold drove me to AZ back in 78.
To answer your question, check out the link below:
Google Ngram Viewer is a fascinating tool that searches "lots of books" for the use of words or phrases, and graphs them over time. You can see there's a big spike for the use of oilery around 1910. My guess is that correlates with the rise of the petroleum industry in the US, around the turn of the century. If you click on the years below the graph, you'll get the list of books, and snippets from those books, showing how the word or phrase was used.
If I understand your question correctly, it would seem to me the word oilery is in the public domain and cannot be used as a trademark. I see it being used as part of a commercial names, but also in the generic sense as "a place that processes oil." But I'm not a lawyer, so it would hurt to check with yours. Hope this helps!
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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