Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation

Gibson Guitar Corporation

The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...

 and used for a particular design of resonator guitar

Resonator guitar

A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar whose sound is produced by one or more spun metal cones instead of the wooden sound board . Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than conventional acoustic guitars which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion...

.

The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar. Originally coined by the Dopyera

Dopyera

Dopyera is a surname and may refer to one of the following Dopyera brothers:* John Dopyera , inventor of the resonator guitar...

 brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company, in time it came, in common language, to mean any

Genericized trademark

A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...

 resonator guitar, or specifically one with a single inverted resonator.