| ® | |
|---|---|
Registered trademark symbol | |
| In Unicode | U+00AE ®REGISTERED SIGN (®, ®, ®) |
| Different from | |
| Different from | U+24C7 ⓇCIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R |
| Related | |
| See also | U+2122 ™TRADE MARK SIGN U+2120 ℠SERVICE MARK |
Theregistered trademark symbol,®, is atypographic symbol that provides notice that the preceding word or symbol is atrademark orservice mark that has been registered with a national trademark office. A trademark is a symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company, product or service.[1][2]
Unregistered trademarks can instead be marked with thetrademark symbol,™, while unregistered service marks are marked with theservice mark symbol,℠. The proper manner to display these symbols is immediately following the mark; the symbol is commonly insuperscript style, but that is not legally required. In many jurisdictions, only registered trademarks confer easily defended legal rights.[3]
In the US, the registered trademark symbol was originally introduced in theTrademark Act of 1946.[citation needed]
Because the® symbol is not commonly available ontypewriters (orASCII), it was common to approximate it with the characters(R) (or(r)).[a][b] An example of a legal equivalent is the phraseRegistered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which may be abbreviated toReg U.S. Pat & TM Off.[5] in the US.[2]
The registered trademark character was added to severalextended ASCII character sets, includingISO-8859-1 from which it was inherited byUnicode asU+00AE ®REGISTERED SIGN.[6]
The first or most prominent mention of a Python trademark should be immediately followed by a symbol for registered trademark: "®" or "(r)".
