Gentle reminder laws are fake and act only as a differentiator between having or not having money/power: 'Fashion designer Marc Jacobs and Ohio State University separately filed applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2019 to trademark [the word] “the”' [1].
Of all the "IP" laws, trademark laws actually serve a necessary role in society, and their applicability is actually pretty well limited. Trademarks exist to make it clear who is actually selling a piece of merchandise you are buying.
Trademarking a common word is not usually a problem, as the trademark only applies within a specific industry. For a famous example, a small IT startup (Apple Computer Company) was allowed to use the same name as one of the biggest and most famous record labels in the world - the Beatles' own Apple Records. Both continue to exist to this day, with their respective trademarks, though of course their relative importance has slightly shifted.
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90763993/why-marc-jacobs-and-ohi...