Google's reorganization this week illustrates its progression toward a generic identity, a transformation endured by other iconic brands as well, says New York Times columnist James Stewart.

"It’s in no imminent danger of losing its trademark protection. But given the popularity of Google’s brand, and how it has entered mainstream English usage as a verb (to google) and participle (googling), it may only be a matter of time," he writes.

Stewart notes that aspirin, cellophane, thermos, escalator, dry ice and trampoline have suffered the same fate. All are "once-prominent brand names that lost their legal status as protected trademarks after entering mainstream usage," Stewart notes.

Xerox, Band-Aid and Kleenex have maintained their trademark protection, but “they’re almost 100 percent of the way to genericization,” lexicographer Grant Barrett told Stewart.

On the face of it, Stewart's argument makes a lot of sense. But upon further review, it doesn't seem like the Google search function is losing its cache at all.

Do you think when someone tells you they are going to Google a subject or a person that they are just likely to use Bing as Google? As of March, Google accounted for 64 percent of searches on desktop computers, Microsoft's Bing 20 percent and Yahoo 13 percent, according to research firm comScore.

I'm a journalist that depends on Internet searches to make a living, and I never use anything but Google. And I won't change until there's clear evidence of a superior product.

Meanwhile, Google's reorganization into a holding company (Alphabet) with various units led some Google likened the new company's structure to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

But that's not an apt comparison, says New York magazine writer Annie Lowrey.

"Warren Buffett’s conglomerate is a true conglomerate, with a big insurance business, a big railroad business, a big airplane-parts business, a big underwear business, and a big candy business," she writes. Lagging performance in one unit can often be cancelled out by strong performance in another.

But, "Alphabet is really Google plus businesses that Google subsidizes or provides the capital to invest in — including some 'moonshots,' in Silicon Valley parlance — that will either turn into giant, world-changing businesses or never make a dime," Lowrey says.

That's a far cry from Berkshire's balanced diversification.

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