Registered trademark symbol

The registered trademark symbol, designated by ® (a circled "R"), is a symbol used in the United States to provide notice that the preceding mark is a trademark or service mark that has been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Trademarks not so registered are instead marked with the trademark symbol ™, while unregistered service marks are marked with the service mark symbol ℠. The proper manner to display the symbol is immediately following the mark in superscript style. It is distinct from the similar Enclosed R character (Ⓡ).

Because the ® symbol has long been unavailable on typewriters and ASCII-based computer systems, it has been common to approximate this symbol with the characters (R) or (r); for example, the Python language Trademark Usage Policy advocates this usage. However, these forms do not have legal force; a legal equivalent is the phrase "Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," which may be abbreviated to "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off.

The character is mapped in Unicode under position U+00AE. On Windows systems, a superscript registered trademark symbol may be entered by means of Alt codes, by holding the ALT key while typing the numbers 0174 on the numeric keypad. On Macintosh systems, it may be entered with Option-R.

Related symbols

• The trademark symbol ™, used for unregistered trademarks.
• The similar copyright symbol, featuring a C instead of an R in the circle.

References