Public domain "acetylsalicylic acid" (2-acetoxybenzoic acid) is better known as "aspirin" in the United States—a generic term. In Canada, however, "Aspirin", with an uppercase A, is still a trademark of the German company Bayer, while aspirin, with a lowercase "a", is not. Bayer lost the trademark in the United States, the UK and France after World War I, as part of the Treaty of Versailles. So many copycat products entered the marketplace during the war that it was deemed generic just three years later. Bayer also lost the trademark in the same jurisdictions for "Heroin" which it trademarked a year before it
Asa Townsend Asa Townsend Asa Townsend (c.1775-alive 1851) was an early settler in Westminster Township near what became the City of London, Ontario. His lands ultimately became incorporated in London's Springbank Park. By the 1820s he removed westward to settle on the bank of the Ausable River in what later became Bosanquet Township in Lambton County. Here he operated a salt well. He and his wife—whose name is not known—are credited with being the first white settlers in the area of the present village of Arkona, Ontario. Asa was still living at the time of the 1851 Bosanquet Township assessment, living just