---
title: Chapter 14. Trademarks
prev: books/fdp-primer/editor-config/
next: books/fdp-primer/see-also
description: Guidelines for trademarks in the FreeBSD Documentation Project
tags: ["trademarks", "AsciiDoctor", "HTML"]
showBookMenu: true
weight: 14
params:
  path: "/books/fdp-primer/trademarks/"
---

[[trademarks]]
= Trademarks
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For all documents on the FreeBSD Documentation Project, citing registered trademarks is necessary and other trademarks is customary, and that is a requirement for every writer and contributor.

[[trademark-symbols]]
== Trademark Symbols

Append a trademark symbol ((TM), (R), or other) to the first occurrence of the trademarked name, and always when using logos.
Use the extref:{fdp-primer}/writing-style/#writing-style-special-characters[equivalent ASCII sequence], which will be rendered as the actual Unicode character.
Also, write the trademarked name following its trademark guidelines.

When in doubt, research the trademark owner's website, the product's website, and or the link:https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks[United States Patent and Trademark Office trademark search website].

[[trademark-citing]]
== Trademark Citing

The FreeBSD Documentation Project provides a template for citing trademarks, which also avoids duplicating trademarks in the documents.

First, look for the trademark in the link:https://cgit.freebsd.org/doc/tree/documentation/themes/beastie/i18n/en.toml#n328[Copyright section in the project's template], then add it to the trademarks tag on the `Front Matter` section of the document, located at the beginning of each document.

The following is an example of the `Front Matter` of the extref:{contributing}[Contributing to FreeBSD] article:

....
---
title: Contributing to FreeBSD
authors:
  - author: Jordan Hubbard
  - author: Sam Lawrance
  - author: Mark Linimon
description: How to contribute to the FreeBSD Project
trademarks: ["freebsd", "ieee", "general"]
weight: 15
tags: ["Contributing", "FreeBSD", "Non-Programmer Tasks", "Programmer Tasks"]
---
....

The trademark tags `freebsd`, `ieee`, and `general` will be automatically rendered when building the document like this:

....
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation.

IEEE, POSIX, and 802 are registered trademarks of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. in the United States.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this document, and the FreeBSD Project was aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed by the “™” or the “®” symbol.
....

If a trademark is not present in the project's template, it must be submitted.
Any developer or contributor can update the trademarks.

The `freebsd` and `general` trademark tags are usually present in all documents.
