Finding trademarks and inserting appropriate symbols

[Bob Stromberg]

Hi,
As I'm working in an Office application, I might happen to enter a word that
is a trademark, such as Microsoft(R) or Jawbreaker(R). If I am indeed
referring to a trademarked name, house rules dictate that I insert the
correct trademark symbol.

Is there a way to scan through a document or set of documents and add the
appropriate symbol -- (TM) or (R) -- if missing?

Of course, I'd use the actual symbol, not the parenthetical characters. <g>

Thanks!

 

[DL]

You can instigate a Find & Replace.
Or perhaps if long and detailed doc, containing a plethera of trademarked
names, a footnote / or somesuch acknowledging the trade names

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I thought I'd read something about how often a symbol had to be used. I was
able to find the following information that confirmed what I remembered.

MUST I USE THE TM OR ® SYMBOL EVERY TIME I USE A TRADEMARK?

The T or ® symbol need only appear in the first or most prominent mention of
the mark. Omission of the T or ® symbol does not invalidate or compromise
your rights in a trademark. Its purpose is to alert the public to your
ownership of the mark, and it is one of the primary ways to affirmatively
protect a mark.


HOW DO I USE THE TM OR ® SYMBOL IN COMPANY REPORTS OR DOCUMENTS?

The T or ® symbol should be referenced in the title of a document or report.
Thereafter, it is unnecessary to repeat the symbol. A single reference to
the trademark is sufficient in either its first use or most prominent use
within the document. If trademark is used in sections of a document which
may be published or distributed separately, the TM or R symbol should be
used.

 

[Bob I]

Autocorrect comes to mind.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

If using Word 2003, click on INSERT and then scroll down to 'Symbol'.. this
may work in 2002 and earlier versions too..

 

[Bob Stromberg]

Hi, thanks for all the replies. I am in particular looking for a tool that
will do this for the whole of a document, perhaps using two lists, one of
trademarks and one of registered trademarks, or perhaps distinguishing the
two types of trademark in one list. Note that I am only interested in "word
trademarks," not "logo trademarks."

In a corporate SGML environment where I was once employed, we had a tool
that would go through all the files in a document and wrap the trademarks in
appropriate tags. Later, when the output was processed, only the first
occurence of any particular trademark would get the appropriate symbol. A
nice touch was that everybody in the department could use the same files on a
network share, so one person could adjust the lists for each publishing cycle.

In Office, this might be doable using XML.

I did find two lists of trademarks, neither of which seems to be quite
complete (searching for "list of trademarks" gets different results than
"list of registered trademarks"):

from the Internation Trademark Associaton:

http://www.inta.org/tmcklst1.htm

and from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxi.htm

Any further thoughts are quite welcome.

 

[VManes]

One problem with your approach - many of the trademarks are also common
words, that might be used in other contexts.
"If you try to use a butterfly(tm) as an anchor(tm), you're bound to
blush(tm) at your mistake."

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We've secretly switched the dilithium crystals with new Folger's
Crystals...
let's watch what happens."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi, thanks for all the replies. I am in particular looking for a tool that
will do this for the whole of a document, perhaps using two lists, one of
trademarks and one of registered trademarks, or perhaps distinguishing the
two types of trademark in one list. Note that I am only interested in "word
trademarks," not "logo trademarks."

In a corporate SGML environment where I was once employed, we had a tool
that would go through all the files in a document and wrap the trademarks in
appropriate tags. Later, when the output was processed, only the first
occurence of any particular trademark would get the appropriate symbol. A
nice touch was that everybody in the department could use the same files on
a
network share, so one person could adjust the lists for each publishing
cycle.

In Office, this might be doable using XML.

I did find two lists of trademarks, neither of which seems to be quite
complete (searching for "list of trademarks" gets different results than
"list of registered trademarks"):

from the Internation Trademark Associaton:

http://www.inta.org/tmcklst1.htm

and from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxi.htm

Any further thoughts are quite welcome.