Short post, but might as well get it out while I’m feeling ranty.
Just visited a site that had the Registered Trademark symbol (®) after every single instance of the brand name that had the registered trademark. You will see this happen with “plain old” trademark symbol (™) as well.
Drives me nuts.
Unless a company has explicitly stated in their logo and brand name guidelines that this symbol must accompany every single instance, it’s not necessary. And even companies with that policy aren’t likely to notice you and bother litigating if you’ve handled their trademark in an acceptable way. But it’s one heck of an eyesore along with 99%+ of the time not being necessary, to see those danged symbols everywhere.
Here’s how it’s done in the vast majority of the business world, in one short sentence:
Use the ® or ™ symbol in the first or most prominent instance of the trademarked word or phrase.
If you’re using a graphical logo that includes the trademark symbol, you might want to play it safe and also add the symbol ONCE in the first or most prominent instance of the text trademark as well. Then you’ve been clear: “yes, that graphic is trademarked… but so is the name itself, even in plain text.”
That’s it.
If any of you ever decide to create a company or a product, for the love of God please do it this way. It doesn’t make your brand name look more cool or more legitimate to have that symbol everywhere.
/rant over
