The registered trademark symbol.

The registered trademark symbol, designated by ® (a circled R also known as a Racol derived from Registered & Authorised Company Logo), is a symbol used to provide notice that the preceding mark is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with a national trademark office.^[1] In some countries, including Hong Kong, it is against the law to use the registered trademark symbol for a mark that is not officially registered in any country.^[1] Trademarks not so registered are instead marked with the trademark symbol ™, while unregistered service marks are marked with the service mark symbol ℠. The proper manner to display these symbols is immediately following the mark in superscript style.

[edit] Computer usage

The registered trademark character has a standardized representation in most computer systems. It is mapped in Unicode under position U+00AE.^[2] The registered trademark symbol ® is distinct, in computer representation, from the similar enclosed R character (Ⓡ). On Windows systems, a superscript registered trademark symbol may be entered by means of Alt codes, by holding the Alt key while typing the numbers 0174 on the numeric keypad. On Macintosh systems, it may be entered with ⌥R. In HTML the entity used is ®, in LaTeX it is \textregistered.

Because the ® symbol has long been unavailable on typewriters and ASCII-based computer systems, it has been common to approximate this symbol with the characters (R) or (r); for example, the Python programming language Trademark Usage Policy advocates this usage.^[3] However, these forms do not have legal force.^{[citation needed]} Example of legal equivalents are the phrase "Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," which may be abbreviated to "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off.",^[4] in the U.S., and the letters "RTM" in the UK.^[1]

[edit] Related symbols

• The trademark symbol ^TM, used for unregistered trademarks.
• The similar copyright symbol, ©
• The similar sound recording copyright symbol, featuring a P instead of an R in the circle.
• The similar Orthodox Union hechsher symbol, featuring a U instead of an R in the circle.

[edit] References