No, I don't think this is taking pedantry a bit too far.
As other replies to the parent comment show, people seem to feel that this sort of abuse (meaning the registering of absurdly generic trademarks) is typical of a large organisation like EMI.
The fact is, this is a false belief (at least in this case).
It's false as EMI didn't trademark the word. We can go around blaming cultures like EMI's for mistakes made by individuals decades earlier, but I don't think that's a valid way to argue. Do you?
