Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks
This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
This page in a nutshell: Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules, regardless of the preference of trademark owners. |
Manual of Style (MoS) |
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Trademarks include words and short phrases used by legal entities to identify themselves and their products and services. Often, these names are written in several ways with variations in capitalization, punctuation, and formatting. The advice in this page also applies to names and phrases used to identify movements, groups, forums, projects, events, and other non-commercial entities and their output.[a] This guideline (in its entirety) applies to all trademarks, service marks, wordmarks, trade names, and all other names of businesses and similar entities, and products and services thereof.
When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should examine styles already in use by independent reliable sources. From among those, choose the style that most closely resembles standard English – regardless of the preference of the trademark owner. Exceptions may apply, but Wikipedia relies on sources to determine when an unusual name format has become conventional for a particular trademark; only names that are consistently styled a particular way by a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are styled that way in Wikipedia. Do not invent new styles that are not used by independent reliable sources.
These practices help ensure consistency in language and avoid drawing undue attention to some subjects rather than others. Listed below are more specific recommendations for frequently occurring nonstandard formats.
General rules
[edit]- Capitalize trademarks, like proper names. For details, follow the same style as for titles of published works
- use: Pyrex
- avoid: pyrex
- Don't expect readers to know, based on trademarks or brand names, what item is being discussed. For example:
- use: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolex watches.
- avoid: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolexes.
- however: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Apple Watches. (This capitalization is appropriate because the product type is included in the formal name of the product.)
- Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use, rather than inventing a new one:
- use: Time, Kiss, Asus, Sony Mobile. (Capitalize GEICO, IBM, as acronyms/initialisms.)
- avoid: TIME, KISS, ASUS, SONY Mobile
- Using all-caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't (or no longer) stand for anything. For instance, use SAT for the testing system (formerly the Scholastic Assessment Test) and KFC for the fast-food restaurant (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken). Using all-lowercase letters may likewise be acceptable if it is done universally by sources, such as with the webcomic xkcd.
- Do not use the ™ and ® symbols, or similar, in either article text or citations, unless unavoidably necessary for context.
- use: LittleBigPlanet, Realtor
- avoid: LittleBigPlanet™, REALTOR®
- Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words or letters (e.g., ♥ for "love", ! for i) or for normal punctuation, unless a significant majority of reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently include the special character in the subject's name. Similarly, avoid special stylization, such as superscripting or boldface, in an attempt to emulate a trademark.
- use: Macy's, Skate, Yellow Tail, Seven, Alien 3, Toys "R" Us[b]
- avoid: macy★s, skate., [ yellow tail ], Se7en, Alien3, Toys Я Us
- When a name is almost never written except in a particular stylized form, use that form on Wikipedia: Deadmau5, 3M, 2 Fast 2 Furious; but Kesha not Ke$ha
- OxyContin or Oxycontin – editor's choice
- however: PlayStation only (camelcase preferred because Playstation is not widely used.)
- Initial lowercase in certain trademarks almost never written any other way, such as iPhone and eBay, are accepted on Wikipedia, though for page naming there are technical limitations and methods of displaying the title appropriately.
- correct: Craigslist, Uber, National Basketball Players Association, Tumblr
- wrong: Craig's List, Über or Ueber, National Basketball Players' Association, Tumbler
Mergers, partnerships, and other combined names
[edit]The names of merged companies, partnerships, consolidated divisions, and merged product lines vary by organization, and there are many styles. Beware assumptions about how such names are constructed and what they mean; a complex real example is Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co., which resulted from a merger of two corporations, while its name, built from parts of those of previous entities that were themselves the results of mergers, consists of two last names, a first and last name, a company name, and an abbreviation.
The ampersand (&) is frequently used in trademarks (e.g. AT&T), and the plus sign (+) occasionally (as in Springer Science+Business Media), as substitutes for the word "and". A long-standing trend has been to drop the word entirely (along with commas sometimes) in long, multi-party business names, especially after mergers or the addition of a partner (for example, Harcourt, Brace & Company became Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, later part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
More recently, some have even taken to removing spaces and using camelcase (e.g. DaimlerChrysler), sometimes unpredictably (as in JPMorgan Chase).
- Leave compressed names as-is: Do not add "and", a symbol for it, commas, or spaces to such names (e.g. "Houghton, Mifflin & Harcourt") where independent, reliable sources do not consistently use them, and do not remove them (e.g. "HoughtonMifflinHarcourt") if they are consistently used.
- The compressed form is not always the one to use: As with the other considerations above, if reliable sources overwhelmingly favor a particular spelling and punctuation, use it in Wikipedia, but do not simply attempt to mimic graphical marketing materials: Gulf and Western Industries is the proper corporation name (Gulf and Western for short), not the Gulf+Western of their logo; while more concise, it is less recognizable and less common.
If in doubt about a modern company, their website's small print, contact page, or legal disclaimers (privacy policy, etc.) may provide the official company name, and online searches of corporation registrations and of trademarks can also be used for this purpose. (Note, however, that Wikipedia article titles are usually given the most common name in reliable sources, which might not be the official name.)