Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks

For the Wikimedia Foundation's policy on its own trademarks, see wmf:Trademark policy.

"WP:BRANDING" redirects here. For the essay, see Wikipedia:Avoid branding.

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. 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

"WP:CAMELCASE" redirects here. For information regarding use of CamelCase on older versions of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia.

• Capitalize trademarks, like proper names. For details, follow the same style as for titles of published works (See WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Titles of 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: (But see exception below under § Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter.)
  • 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. (See also WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Acronyms.)
• 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. (See also WP:Article titles § Special characters.)
  • use: Macy's, Skate, Yellow Tail, Seven, Alien 3, Toys "R" Us
  • 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
• Trademarks in "CamelCase" are a judgment call; the style may be used where it reflects general usage and makes the trademark more readable; however, usage should be consistent throughout the article.
  • 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.
• Do not "correct" the spelling, punctuation, diacritics, or grammar of trademarks to be different from the reliably sourced spelling  – the name should be recognizable as referring to the topic.
  • correct: Craigslist, Uber, National Basketball Players Association, Tumblr
  • wrong: Craig's List, Über or Ueber, National Basketball Players' Association, Tumbler
• Do not capitalize the word the in a trademark (see WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Institutions, and § Capitalization of The) regardless how the name is styled in logos and the like, except at the beginning of a sentence. Titles of published works do have an initial The capitalized; bands and the like do not. Rarely, an exception may apply, but only when consistently treated this way in most reliable sources (e.g. The The); when expanding an acronym that starts with T for The (as in The International Cat Association (TICA)); and when the name of a publisher begins with the name of a publication with an initial The (thus The New York Times Company, per The New York Times).
• For names of individuals that might be stylized in an unusual way, the application is the same: default to normal English style unless an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use a specific variant style for that person. (See WP:Manual of Style/Biography § Unusual exceptions.)
• The title of a published work may have additional considerations, including particular uses of italics or quotation marks (which may affect link formatting and display control of the page title), capitalization norms that vary by language, etc. (See WP:Manual of Style/Titles of works.)

Mergers, partnerships, and other combined names

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.)

Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter

See also: WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters

Trademarks that officially begin with a lowercase letter raise several problems because they break the normal capitalization rules of English that proper names are written with initial capital letters wherever they occur in a sentence.

• Trademarks promoted without any capitals are capitalized on Wikipedia like any other:
  • use: I found a Thirtysomething DVD and a pair of Adidas shoes while browsing Craigslist.
  • avoid: I found a thirtysomething DVD and a pair of adidas shoes while browsing craigslist.
• Trademarks that begin with a one-letter lowercase prefix pronounced as a separate letter are often not capitalized if the second letter is capitalized, but should otherwise follow normal capitalization rules:
  • use: He said that eBay is where he bought his iPod.
  • avoid: He said that EBay is where he bought his IPod.

Not all trademarks with a pronunciation that might imply a lowercase letter at the beginning actually do fit this pattern, and should not be re-styled to conform to it (use NEdit not "nEdit", E-Trade not "eTrade"; Xbox, not "xBox").

In some cases, a lowercase prefix longer than one letter is used (e.g. tvOS). These are determined on a case-by-case basis; Wikipedia will use such a stylization when it is preferred in an overwhelming majority of independent reliable sources.

Indicating stylizations

In the article about a trademark, give the version that follows the usual rules of spelling and punctuation, boldfaced in the lead sentence. Follow this with a note, such as "(stylized as ...)" or "(stylised as ...)", depending on the article's variety of English, with the stylization if one exists and is significantly different. It should also be in bold, and may include simple styling, like capitalization changes, decorative characters, or superscripting (but not colorization, attempts to emulate font choices, or other elaborate effects). Then resume using the normal English spelling for the remainder of the article. In other articles that mention the subject, use only the normal English spelling, not the stylization.

However, if the title of the article is the stylized version of the name (e.g. tvOS), it should be given in the boldfaced title recapitulation at the beginning of the lead (i.e., not in a "stylized as" note), and used throughout the text (and, in most cases, in other articles that mention it). The lead may also have a note (e.g., "sometimes also written ...") indicating the unstylized version if it is also commonly attested in reliable sources, especially if any confusion could result from its absence.

When a stylization appears only in a logo rather than within text (in either primary or independent reliable sources), it generally does not need to be mentioned at the top of the article. For example, Facebook uses a lower case "f" in its logo, while within text it solely uses "Facebook" to refer to itself. Similarly, Wikipedia uses "WIKIPEDIA" in the logo but elsewhere uses "Wikipedia" (although the relevant information is still discussed at the article Wikipedia logo). Adidas, on the other hand, uses "adidas" rather than "Adidas" in running text in the company's own materials, and the stylism is therefore mentioned.

For additional lead-section considerations, see § Multiple, changed, and former names.

Trademarks as article titles

See also: Wikipedia:Article titles and Wikipedia:Disambiguation

Wikipedia articles are organized around a specific subject, which isn't always the same as an article about a name or phrase. Where a trademark could refer to different subjects or entities, it is best to create different articles. Consider the examples of Atari, Inc. transferring its trademark to Atari SA, or News Corporation splitting into a new corporation called News Corp. Wikipedia's guidelines on disambiguation are most helpful here.

Use of graphic logos

See also: Wikipedia:Non-free content, Wikipedia:Logos, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons

Product logos and corporate logos, such as the stylized rendition of the word Dell used by Dell Inc., whether copyrighted or not, may be used once in the infobox or top (usually right) corner of articles about the related product, service, company, or entity.

Although many companies claim copyright over their logos, the use of the logo in an encyclopedia article may be considered fair use. Please tag logo images with {{non-free logo}}. Some logos are free content because they are in the public domain or are under a free license: for example, logos consisting of short text may not be eligible for copyright protection, and old logos that were published without a copyright notice have likely fallen into the public domain. When this is definitely the case, the {{trademark}} tag may be used instead. However, when in doubt, err on the side of caution per non-free content policy by assuming that the logo is copyrighted.

Note that non-free logos should only be used in the infoboxes of the primary article(s) to which they are affiliated; i.e. a company logo may be used in the article about that company, but not in a separate article about one of the company's products.

Distinguish clearly between the trademark and the company name when, as with Dell, it is customary to do so. Company names should normally be given in the most common form in English; only specify International Business Machines Corporation to state that that is the legal name, otherwise call it IBM, as our sources do.

Multiple, changed, and former names

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies)

Regardless of the page title, the lead sentence of an article on a company or other organization should normally begin with its full legal name (the current one or, if defunct, the final one):

• Generic Publishing Corporation Ltd. is one of the largest publishers of widget books worldwide and is based in ....

Where the most common name in independent, reliable, secondary sources (as reflected in the article title) is substantively different from the legal name, it is normal to mention both in the lead. If a stylized version of the name is also appropriate to include, see § Indicating stylizations. Following an official name change, Wikipedia does not automatically switch to the new one, but follows the most common usage in independent reliable sources written after the change.

Previous names are often better placed in the article body (e.g. under a "History" section) than in the lead, especially if there are several of them.

Aside from in the lead sentence in its own article, use the most common name found in the sources, whenever practical, when referring to an organization or other trademark name in article text.

See also

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters