Trademarks and service marks
The trademark (tm) element is used to identify different types of trade and service marks, and to record the mark owner. While there is no direct provision for a trademark image, a workaround can be used for this purpose.
A trademark is a distinctive word, phrase, sign, symbol or other indicator used by an organisation to identify its products or services, or the organisation itself. Trademark laws vary from country to country, although there are international conventions including the Trademark Law Treaty, the Madrid System of registering trademarks in multiple jurisdictions, and World Trade Organisation agreements.
DITA includes a trademark (tm) element to identify trademark words or phrases. However, there is specific provision for identifying images as trademarks.
- reg
- registered trademark
- tm
- unregistered trademark
- sm
- service mark (not widely used outside USA)
When processed to an output format, the value of the tmtype attribute will typically be used to apply the applicable standard symbol to the trademark or service mark, such as ® or ™.
The tm element also has an optional tmclass attribute, which can be used for different classifications of reg, tm, and sm. More importantly, the tm element has trademark and tmowner attribute. The trademark attribute is used when the content of the tm element is different to the legal trademark itself. The tmowner attribute is used to identify the name of the legal entity that owns the trademark.
<image href="...">
<alt>
<term>
<tm tmtype="reg" tmowner="IBM Corp.">IBM</tm>
</term>
Logo</alt>
</image>