Quirky Questions: Using the Registration symbol (®), the Trademark symbol (™) or Neither?

Adam Sapper

Adam counsels clients on all aspects of brand management, including trademark selection, clearance, registration, maintenance and enforcement.

You may also like...

1 Response

  1. Brent Thomson says:

    OK, but are you prohibited form using the registration symbol at all unless you use it with a registered trademark?

    Cos I’m pretty sure you used the symbol yourself several times in this post. What if someone makes a trademark that is literally the word “the”? Then would people not be allowed to put the symbol after the word “the”? And if it’s completely okay to use it in text like this, then what would distinguish that from using it in other situations (especially if the trademark looks like a word)?

    Suppose you made a video about the registration symbol. Where would you legally be allowed to put an example of it? If it was next to another image or something, couldn’t it be misconstrued as an attempt to declare trademark registration?

    I know these are pretty ridiculous questions, but I’m just curious. One more: what is the registered symbol defined as? Is it just ANY letter R in ANY circle? Does there have to be a certain colour scheme or colour consistency? I’m just saying, the law seems pretty vague about all of this.