How is it possible to trademark such a generic phrase as 'bake-off'?

Or Windows?

I don’t think that’s as generic. It’s be like trademarking ‘operating system’ when everyone’s been using operating systems for years.

Indeed. So easy to forget that house holes have only been called “windows” since the term became popular in the 90s.

Not sure why you’re feeling the need to be sarcastic?

It’s fine to use generic words in trademarks, but generally not generic words from the domain the trademark is being registered in. So you can trademark ‘apple’ in the domain of computers, but not in the domain of fruit. And you can register ‘windows’ in the domain of operating systems but not in the domain of construction.

‘Bake-off’ is a generic baking term registered in the domain of baking, which is odd.

(Lots of operating system desktop environments have ‘windows’ as a concept but it wasn’t as commonly known at the time.)

Touché.

Delightful, but also a sober reminder of the existence of the vast consumer industrial complex of monoliths like General Mills, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, etc. who own so much of our day to day existence.