What is a Xerox machine?

Answer 1

In the strictest sense, a Xerox machine is a machine that is manufactured or sold by the Xerox Corporation or one of its affiliates, such as Fuji Xerox. The word "Xerox" is a registered trade mark and in that sense can only be used in connection with products of the Xerox Corporation.

In common usage, the term "Xerox machine" is used by many to mean any machine that makes a photocopy using the xerographic process that involves dry ink, electrostatic charges, a light-sensitive photoreceptor surface, and heat or pressure fusing of the dry ink to the paper.

The photocopy manufacturing industry tries to minimize this use, however, for two reasons. Xerox Corporation wants to maintain control of its trade mark and prevent it going the way of the term "hoover" in the UK or "aspirin" in the US. Most of its competitors would prefer that their products not be associated in the public language with the name of a competing manufacturer.