Re: Trademark placement . . . again

[Deborah Hemstreet <dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com>]

Hi Nancy,

As others have advised you, the best place to go is your legal 
department. The placement is going to vary depending on their 
requirements and interpretation of "best practice".

At one company I worked for, one lawyer allowed a listing of our 
trademarks on the credits page of the manual, and then a full trademark 
used on first occurrence in each chapter, and just the product name 
thereafter (example: Product(TM) on first occurrence, and just Product 
thereafter).

The lawyer was transferred and I was assigned a new one. This lawyer 
vacillated from first occurrence on every page and finally said - "Best 
practice is EVERY USAGE, no matter what - including the index, table of 
contents and help files..." I tried to fight the lawyer on this one 
because of readability issues (some tradename appeared on almost every 
page because of marketing issues <gag>, though I did succeed to get rid 
of some tradenames with more generic terminology, as much as possible).

I lost the battle.

The point is, you can read all kinds of references, and you can hear all 
of our stories, but at the end of the day, you MUST get the input from 
the company's legal department - IN WRITING - and keep that information 
with your document approvals. If the company you are working for is a 
startup and does not have any infrastructure for this, then I would urge 
you to be proactive and try to set such a process in place. The benefit 
for your company could be great, and at the least, they will see you as 
a forward thinker concerned about more than just good writing.

I hope this is helpful.

Deborah


Nancy Allison wrote:
> I searched techwr-l and did find some useful threads. However, for some 
> reason, they were from about 10 years ago, and they didn't answer my 
> exact question anyway.
>
> So, here it is: Does anyone have a reputable, printed style guide or 
> other reference work that gives a standard for where you put the 
> trademark symbol, and how often?
>
> I've inherited a document that places TM after virtually every 
> occurrence of the product name. However, no one in this company owns the 
> documetation formally, so I believe that I can change this document . . 
> . but I want an official source to back me up.
>
> Chicago Manual of Style -- not a peep about placement.
>
> Microsoft Manual of Style -- surprisingly (at least, to me) same
>
> Judy Tarutz's wonderful Technical Editing . . . same
>
> I know what every other company I've ever worked at has done . . . but 
> that explanation is not going to be compelling, here.
>
> Any suggestions gladly received.
>
> --Nancy
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ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing 
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor,  Microsoft Word or 
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. 
http://www.doctohelp.com

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authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
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