Thisguideline is a part of the English Wikipedia'sManual of Style. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this page should reflectconsensus. When in doubt, discuss first onthis guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:MOSTMWP:MOSTM MOS:TMMOS:TM MOS:BRANDMOS:BRAND

This page in a nutshell: Follow standard Englishtext formatting and capitalization rules, regardless of the preference of trademark owners.

Trademarks include words and short phrases used by legal entities to identify themselves and their products and services. Often, these names are written in several ways with variations in capitalization, punctuation, and formatting. The advice in this pagealso applies to names and phrases used to identify movements, groups, forums, projects, events, and other non-commercial entities and their output.^[a] This guideline (in its entirety) applies to all trademarks,service marks,wordmarks,trade names, and all other names of businesses and similar entities, and products and services thereof.

When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should examine styles already in use byindependentreliable sources. From among those, choose the style that most closely resembles standard English – regardless of the preference of the trademark owner. Exceptions may apply, but Wikipedia relies on sources to determine when an unusual name format has become conventional for a particular trademark; only names that areconsistently styled a particular way by a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are styled that way in Wikipedia. Do not invent new styles that are not used by independent reliable sources.

These practices help ensure consistency in language and avoid drawingundue attention to some subjects rather than others. Listed below are more specific recommendations for frequently occurring nonstandard formats.

• Capitalize trademarks, likeproper names. For details, follow the same style as for titles of published works(SeeWP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Titles of works).
  • use:Pyrex
  • avoid:pyrex
• Don't expect readers to know, based on trademarks or brand names, what item is being discussed. For example:
  • use:Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolenRolex watches.
  • avoid:Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolexes.
  • however:Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolenApple Watches. (This capitalization is appropriate because the product type isincluded in the formal name of the product.)
• Follow standard Englishtext formatting andcapitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use, rather than inventing a new one:(But see exception below under§ Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter.)
  • use:Time,Kiss,Asus,Sony Mobile. (CapitalizeGEICO,IBM,as acronyms/initialisms.)
  • avoid:TIME,KISS,ASUS,SONY Mobile
• Using all-caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't (or no longer) stand for anything. For instance, useSAT for the testing system (formerly the Scholastic Assessment Test) andKFC for the fast-food restaurant (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken). Using all-lowercase letters may likewise be acceptable if it is done universally by sources, such as with the webcomicxkcd.(See alsoWP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Acronyms.)
• Do not use the™ and® symbols, or similar, in either article text or citations, unless unavoidably necessary for context.
  • use:LittleBigPlanet,Realtor
  • avoid:LittleBigPlanet™,REALTOR®
• Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words or letters (e.g.,♥ for "love",! fori) or for normal punctuation, unless a significant majority of reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently include the special character in the subject's name. Similarly, avoid special stylization, such as superscripting or boldface, in an attempt to emulate a trademark.(See alsoWP:Article titles § Special characters.)
  • use:Macy's,Skate,Yellow Tail,Seven,Alien 3,Toys "R" Us^[b]
  • avoid:macy^★s,skate.,[ yellow tail ],Se7en,Alien³,Toys Я Us
  • When a name is almost never written except in a particular stylized form, use that form on Wikipedia:Deadmau5,3M,2 Fast 2 Furious; butKesha notKe$ha
• Shortcut

  • MOS:CAMELCASEMOS:CAMELCASE
  Trademarks in "CamelCase" are a judgment call; the style may be used where it reflects general usage and makes the trademark more readable; however, usage should be consistent throughout the article.
  • OxyContin orOxycontin  –editor's choice
  • however:PlayStation only (camelcase preferred becausePlaystation is not widely used.)
  • Initial lowercase in certain trademarks almost never written any other way, such asiPhone andeBay, areaccepted on Wikipedia, though for page naming there aretechnical limitations and methods ofdisplaying the title appropriately.
• Do not "correct" the spelling, punctuation, diacritics, or grammar of trademarks to be different from the reliably sourced spelling  – the name should berecognizable as referring to the topic.
  • correct:Craigslist,Uber,National Basketball Players Association,Tumblr
  • wrong:Craig's List,Über orUeber,National Basketball Players' Association,Tumbler
• Shortcuts

  • MOS:THETMMOS:THETM
  • MOS:TMTHEMOS:TMTHE
  Do not capitalize the wordthe in a trademark(seeWP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Institutions, and§ Capitalization of The) regardless how the name is styled in logos and the like, except at the beginning of a sentence.^[c] Titles of published worksdo have an initialThe capitalized; bands and the likedo not. Rarely, an exception may apply, but only when consistently treated this way in most reliable sources; when expanding an acronym that starts withT forThe (as inThe International Cat Association (TICA)); and when the name of a publisher begins with the name of a publication with an initialThe (thusThe New York Times Company, perThe New York Times).
• For names of individuals that might be stylized in an unusual way, the application is the same: default to normal English style unless an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use a specific variant style for that person.(SeeWP:Manual of Style/Biography § Unusual exceptions.)
• The title of a published work may have additional considerations, including particular uses of italics or quotation marks (which may affect link formatting and display control of the page title), capitalization norms that vary by language, etc.(SeeWP:Manual of Style/Titles of works.)

The names of merged companies, partnerships, consolidated divisions, and merged product lines vary by organization, and there aremany styles. Beware assumptions about how such names are constructed and what they mean; a complex real example isMorgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co., which resulted from a merger of two corporations, while its name, built from parts of those of previous entities that were themselves the results of mergers, consists of two last names, a first and last name, a company name, and an abbreviation.

Theampersand (&) is frequently used in trademarks (e.g.AT&T), and theplus sign (+) occasionally (as inSpringer Science+Business Media), as substitutes for the word "and". A long-standing trend has been to drop the word entirely (along with commas sometimes) in long, multi-party business names, especially after mergers or the addition of a partner (for example,Harcourt, Brace & Company becameHarcourt Brace Jovanovich, later part ofHoughton Mifflin Harcourt).

More recently, some have even taken to removing spaces and using camelcase (e.g.DaimlerChrysler), sometimes unpredictably (as inJPMorgan Chase).

• Leave compressed names as-is: Do not add "and", a symbol for it, commas, or spaces to such names (e.g. "Houghton, Mifflin & Harcourt") where independent, reliable sources do not consistently use them, and do not remove them (e.g. "HoughtonMifflinHarcourt") if they are consistently used.
• The compressed form is not always the one to use: As with the other considerations above, if reliable sources overwhelmingly favor a particular spelling and punctuation, use it in Wikipedia, but do not simply attempt to mimic graphical marketing materials:Gulf and Western Industries is the proper corporation name (Gulf and Western for short), not theGulf+Western of their logo; while more concise, it is less recognizable and less common.

If in doubt about a modern company, their website's small print, contact page, or legal disclaimers (privacy policy, etc.) may provide the official company name, and online searches of corporation registrations and of trademarks can also be used for this purpose. (Note, however, that Wikipedia article titles are usually giventhe most common name in reliable sources, whichmight not be the official name.)

Trademarks that officially begin with a lowercase letter raise several problems because they break the normal capitalization rules of English that proper names are written with initial capital letters wherever they occur in a sentence.

• Trademarks promoted without any capitals are capitalized on Wikipedia like any other:
  • use:I found aThirtysomething DVD and a pair ofAdidas shoes while browsingCraigslist.
  • avoid:I found athirtysomething DVD and a pair of adidas shoes while browsing craigslist.
• Trademarks that begin with a one-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as a separate letter are often not capitalized if the second letter is capitalized, but should otherwise follow normal capitalization rules:
  • use:He said thateBay is where he bought hisiPod.
  • avoid:He said that EBay is where he bought his IPod.

Not all trademarks with a pronunciation that might imply a lowercase letter at the beginning actually do fit this pattern, and should not be re-styled to conform to it (useNEdit not "nEdit",E-Trade not "eTrade";Xbox, not "xBox").

In some cases, a lowercase prefix longer than one letter is used (e.g.tvOS). These are determined on a case-by-case basis; Wikipedia will use such a stylization when it is preferred in an overwhelming majority ofindependent reliable sources.

In the article about a trademark, give the version that follows the usual rules of spelling and punctuation,boldfaced in the lead sentence. Follow this with a note, such as "(stylized as ...)" or "(stylised as ...)", depending on the article'svariety of English, with the stylization if one exists and is significantly different. Itshould also be in bold, and may include simple styling, like capitalization changes, decorative characters, or superscripting (but not colorization, attempts to emulate font choices, or other elaborate effects).^[d] Then resume using the normal English spelling for the remainder of the article. In other articles that mention the subject, use only the normal English spelling, not the stylization.

However, if the title of the article is the stylized version of the name (e.g.tvOS), it should be given in the boldfaced title recapitulation at the beginning of the lead (i.e., not in a "stylized as" note), and used throughout the text (and, in most cases, in other articles that mention it). The lead may also have a note (e.g., "sometimes also written ...") indicating the unstylized version if it is also commonly attested in reliable sources, especially if any confusion could result from its absence.

When a stylization appears only in a logo rather than within text (in either primary or independent reliable sources), it generally does not need to be mentioned at the top of the article. For example,Facebook uses a lower case "f" in its logo, while within text it solely uses "Facebook" to refer to itself. Similarly,Wikipedia uses "WIKIPEDIA" in the logo but elsewhere uses "Wikipedia" (although the relevant information is still discussed at the articleWikipedia logo).Adidas, on the other hand, uses "adidas" rather than "Adidas" in running text in the company's own materials, and the stylism is therefore mentioned.

For additional lead-section considerations, see§ Multiple, changed, and former names.

Wikipedia articles are organized around a specific subject, which isn't always the same as an article about a name or phrase. Where a trademark could refer to different subjects or entities, it is best to create different articles. Consider the examples ofAtari, Inc. transferring its trademark toAtari SA, orNews Corporation splitting into a new corporation calledNews Corp. Wikipedia's guidelines ondisambiguation are most helpful here.

Product logos and corporate logos, such as the stylized rendition of the wordDell used byDell Inc., whether copyrighted or not, may be used once in theinfobox or top (usually right) corner of articles about the related product, service, company, or entity.

Although many companies claim copyright over their logos, the use of the logo in an encyclopedia article may be consideredfair use. Pleasetag logo images with{{non-free logo}}. Some logos arefree content because they are in thepublic domain or are under a free license: for example, logos consisting of short text maynot be eligible for copyright protection, and old logos that were published without a copyright notice have likely fallen into the public domain. When this is definitely the case, the{{trademark}} tag may be used instead. However, when in doubt, err on the side of caution per non-free content policy by assuming that the logo is copyrighted.

Note that non-free logos should only be used in the infoboxes of the primary article(s) to which they are affiliated; i.e. a company logo may be used in the article about that company, but not in a separate article about one of the company's products.

Distinguish clearly between the trademark and the company name when, as with Dell, it is customary to do so. Company names should normally be given in the most common form in English; only specifyInternational Business Machines Corporation to state that thatis the legal name, otherwise call itIBM, as our sources do.

Regardless of the page title, thelead sentence of an article on a company or other organization should normally begin with its full legal name (the current one or, if defunct, the final one):

• Generic Publishing Corporation Ltd. is one of the largest publishers of widget books worldwide and is based in ....

Where themost common name in independent, reliable, secondary sources (as reflected in the article title) is substantively different from the legal name, it is normal tomention both in the lead. If a stylized version of the name is also appropriate to include,see§ Indicating stylizations. Following an official name change, Wikipedia does not automatically switch to the new one, but follows the most common usage inindependent reliable sources writtenafter the change.

Previous names are often better placed in the article body (e.g. under a "History" section) than in the lead, especially if there are several of them.

Aside from in the lead sentence in its own article, use the most common name found in the sources, whenever practical, when referring to an organization or other trademark name in article text.

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters

• Wikipedia Manual of Style (legal)

• Pages using sidebar with the child parameter