Re: Trademark question

Subject: Re: Trademark question
From: Dick Gaskill <dickg -at- AG3D -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 17:46:18 -0800

John,

You are absolutely correct. Your marketing lady is definitely not
correct. Tell her to read up on copyright law and/or contact your
company's lawyers.

In a single document, whether that document is multichapter, multifile,
or not, put the TM *only* after the first usage of a trademarked name
and put the (R) *only* after the first usage of a name that is a
registered trademark. It is *not* legally required to put it after
every instance of the name. It is not even legally required to list the
name of every company that owns a product that you mention in your
manual. The law requires that you include a statement like this one.

Product Name, Product Name, Product Name, and Product Name are
trademarks of <your company name>. Product Name and Product Name are
registered trademarks of <your company name>.
All other products or services mentioned in this document are
identified by the trademarks, service marks, or product names as
designated by the companies who market those products. The trademarks
and registered trademarks are held by the companies producing them.
Inquiries concerning such trademarks should be made directly to those
companies.


The following type of statement is also ok, but not necessary.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, the Acrobat logo,
Acrobat Capture, Acrobat Exchange, Distiller, and
PageMaker are trade-marks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks, and
AppleScript is a trademark, of Apple Computer, Inc.

So sayeth the copyright lawyers in my company's legal firm.

BTW, can you imagine what your docs would look like? Ugh. Not to
mention that they would be difficult to read with all those markers
hanging out of the text.


Dick Gaskill
Pubs Manager
AccelGraphics, Inc.

> ----------
> From: John Prince[SMTP:prince1 -at- WEBTV -dot- NET]
> Reply To: John Prince
> Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 4:44 PM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Trademark question
>
> We have just started to create a "Standards Guide" at my firm, and we
> ran into a bit of a debate about trademarks.
>
> Now, in our meeting is a representative of our marketing department.
> She feels that the trademark symbol should appear after each
> mentioning
> of our software. This includes our User's Guides. She feels that the
> symbol should appear even in chapter headings and sub-headings.
> Seeing
> as the User's Guide that I am in charge of mentions the product name
> *numerous* times throughout the book (including many headings) I think
> it's "overkill."
>
> What *I* think is that the trademark symbol should only be used after
> the first mentioning of the product in the body text. After all, the
> purpose of a trademark symbol is protection. In the front matter
> there
> is a small paragraph that says the product is our trademark. Then in
> the body text I feel it should be used when first mentioned, and
> that's
> it.
>
> The marketing rep showed us a letter she received from an attorney,
> which advised us to use it after each reference; thus, why our
> marketing
> rep thought we should do so. I was able to sway her into my line of
> thinking, but I'm curious as to what you guys think.
>
> Also, please cc my other e-mail address, jprince -at- teknekron -dot- com with
> your
> replies.
>
> Thanks!
>
> John
> http://members.tripod.com/~princej/DC.html (The Great Dallas Cowboys)
>
> ~~
> Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
> TECHWR-L)
> Search archives at:
> http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html,
>
>




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