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Using trademarks as verbs

Using a trademark as a verb can genericize a trademark (eg. writing xeroxing instead of photocopying - see Genericized trademark#Avoiding genericide). Wikipedia does not judge whether a trademark has been genericized or not. Courts do. Until a trademark has been deemed genericized in court, I think Wikipedians should respect it. Even though using a trademark is a verb is not illegal (as far as I know - IANAL), what can we say to a trademark owner who wants to protect his/her trademark? That we think the mark is generic? That several sources have used the mark in a generic way? How many sources are enough? That's a judgement that I don't think we should do as wikipedians.

I started this discussion due to some conflicts at Talk:Zorbing.

I propose the following change in policy wording:

  • Avoid use of trademarks as a noun or verb, except where any other usage would be awkward:
    • avoid: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolexes. The encryption key could be found by googling.
    • instead, use: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolex watches. The encryption key could be found with a Google search.
    • however: The prime minister indicated the Clif Bars were delicious.

— Ksero (talk | contribs) 10:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this section of the guideline needs revision, but I'm not sure that this is the way to do it. I think that the guideline really wants to say that we should specify the thing that's being talked rather than expect or assume that readers know or need to know "stolen Rolexes" means "stolen Rolex watches". The idea of "trademarks as a noun" is confusing; lots of trademarked nouns, like company names, are and should be used just that way. I'm not entirely sure about the kind of change that I want to make. Croctotheface (talk) 01:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Croctotheface. The nutshell summary of "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules, regardless of the preference of the trademark owner." doesn't naturally extend to avoiding verbification. In fact, it seems to point away from it - one obvious way to read this guideline is "The prose is what matters, not the desire of the trademark holder.". In the specific case of Zorbing, I'd say the prose suffers - the alternative term some folks are pushing is "sphereing" (yuk!) RossPatterson (talk) 20:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Ksero and believe that the policy should be extended to allow for protection of trademarked brands in order to avoid genericism. I find it difficult to accept that using an alternative term to Zorbing (eg sphereing) will affect the prose so adversely that it justifies the infringement of a registered trademark and allows for brand confusion. 203.109.157.87 (talk) 02:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC) (Lizzie Dean)


Summary of my following opinions:

  • promote generiscisation of a trademark: avoid if possible (agree with Ksero)
  • legal trademark protection: no (disagree with Lizzie Dean, and to some degree with Ksero)
  • good english: yes (agree with Croctotheface and RossPatterson)
  • use generics: if possible

I don't think we can or should use legal decisions about trademark as a sole basis for decisions; it certainly has input, but it cannot be the primary factor. Legal reality (as opposed to real reality) varies from place to place, and regime to regime within a place. While IANAL, I strongly suspect it is possible for a trademark to be legally generiscised in one country and not another, and when a regime change happens, who the heck knows what the end result is. I do think we should recommend use of generic terms where they exist; say "adhesive bandage" and not "band-aid", and note something like (often called band-aids) or (such as those made under the band-aid trademark). "web searching" or "searching on the web" is far preferable to "googling". I therefore agree with RossPatterson on the general concept: we're speaking English here, not Legalese, but I disagree in this specific case; I've renamed the article to sphereing. I'm about to edit it to be less zorb-specific so as to encompass the generic activity. That sidesteps the trademark issue. I'd be fine in theory with someone then going and creating a new zorbing article if there was sufficient zorb-specific content to justify it. -- Akb4 (talk) 20:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

My main question about the Zorb issue is whether "sphereing" is a term that's used widely enough. If it is, it's probably better. Croctotheface (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Being bold, I decided 25k google hits on the word was enough. But I could see someone making a case for changing it back. -- Akb4 (talk) 08:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Direct quotations

The main MoS page states that its style guidelines should be followed "except in direct quotations, where the original text is generally preserved". This exception is not spelled out on this page, but it seems to me that it should be applicable, here as elsewhere, and should be explicitly stated here for the benefit of editors who don't refer back to the main page. JamesMLane t c 23:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

dEUS

The discussion about dEUS on it's talk page should apparently be brought here. The point is: de band is actually called 'dEUS', and Wikipedia is probably the only source calling the band 'Deus'. Let's not be an ivory tower, so let's say it the way the whole world says it instead of using Wiki's guideline - which, in this case, would be quite narrowminded.--GraafGeorge (talk) 16:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, but we have to change Wikipedia policy regarding "Form that most closely resembles standard English" to make this change (see above). Netrat_msk (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it's not at all the case that WP is "the only source" using "Deus." I see three just in the first page of Google News results. Croctotheface (talk) 17:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
(I was just about to make the same point that Croc did.) These discussions have spread across a number of talk pages; note, for example, the lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#capitalisation of band names, which did not end up in consensus for change to the guidelines. I haven't seen a compelling reason to make an exception for Deus to be rendered as dEUS in encyclopedic text. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 17:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I never saw the other, quite lenghty discussion. So, I'm sorry for bringing it up again here - but this must be solved: Wikipedia must not force (band names according to) its guideline upon its readers. By the way, I don't see any results in Google News that uses 'Deus', not even on the other pages.--GraafGeorge (talk) 22:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The consensus that underlies this guideline disagrees with you. The prevalent opinion right now is that band names "must not force" their crazy capitalization schemes upon our readers. You can look elsewhere on this page for the reasons behind it. Croctotheface (talk) 23:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Uncopyrighted

The non-copyrighted, BBC trademark Image:TARDIS-trans.png is being used to advertise an external site not affiliated to the BBC here on WP, it was being discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Doctor_Who#Template:TardisIndexFile, however I can't find a policy precluding it's use in this fashion! Could someone more familiar with the subject look into it Fasach Nua (talk) 14:39, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death on multiple occasion, most notably on the template talk page itself. Since there is no policy excluding it's use either, I see no issue. — Edokter • Talk • 15:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is no policy then, it may be worth having one, even if all it does is validate the use of this trademark in this manor Fasach Nua (talk) 06:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Policies should only be created if there are issues that needs governing. Otherwise, policies 'allowing' certain practices are redundant and add to 'policy-creep'. — Edokter • Talk • 13:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
There is undoubtably an issue that needs governing here Fasach Nua (talk) 16:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I've given my thoughts here. ╟─TreasuryTag (talk ╬ contribs)─╢ 12:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

A discussion that might prove relevant to this guideline is currently in progress at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 08:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Another discussion that might prove relevant to this guideline (pertaining to trademarks like LaTeX) is currently in progress at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Capitalization of tech trademarks, again. ProhibitOnions (T) 14:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

iPod product range

A discussion relevant to this guideline is at Talk:iPod touch#Requested move. Some clarification from users here is welcome there, and at least one user there feels that changes should be made here. Any useful contributions here or in that request are appreciated. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 10:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

easyJet

I have a question regarding the capitalization in easyJet. I know there are exceptions to not capitalizing the first letter of an article usually for trademarks. (ex: eBay, iPod, iTunes. On the project page, I see talk about articles with second letter that are capitalized and the first is pronounced as a separate letter. I also see that you are not allowed to have all capital titles like HELLO. But I do not see any talk on trademarks like easyJet. It is a registered trademark that the airline uses with the first letter not capitalized. Currently the article is capitalized (all related articles are not though). Does anyone have any input on this? Greekboy (talk) 00:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Mixed_or_non-capitalization:

For trademarks that are given in mixed or non-capitalization by their owners (such as adidas), follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules.

EasyJet is a name, and thus "standard English ... capitalisation rules" require it to be capitalised. The situation is exactly the same as the example given in the project page (Adidas), for which the trademark is not capitalised, but within wikipedia, as a name, it is capitalised. The fact to remember is that the encyclopedia is written in English, and thus correct usage of the rules of this language are given priority over how a company styles its trademark. Nouse4aname (talk) 08:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization in Trademarks with multiple words like (iPod shuffle)

Wikipedia needs to a guideline for multiword trademarks:

There is a debate for title names coming from the the lack of a guideline on what to do for multiword trademarks where the following words are not capitalized. An example is the "iPod shuffle®", which is how Apple does it. That particular page was moved against long standing precedent. It was moved based on a discussion (which I personally had not seen) at iPod Touch which there was massive disagreement, but an administrator closed it per the guideline on this page. My problem is that this page says nothing about multiword trademarks. So that means it needs to defer to the nutshell "standard English formatting guidelines". But there doesn't appear to be consensus there either. KelleyCook (talk) 14:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style is not very helpful:

8.162 "Brand names that are registered trademarks—often so indicated in dictionaries—should be capitalized if they must be used. A better choice is to substitute a generic term when available. Although the symbols ® and ™ often accompany trademark names on product packaging and in promotional material, there is no legal requirement to use these symbols, and they should be omitted wherever possible. Note also that some companies want people to use both the proper and the generic terms in reference to their products (“Kleenex facial tissue,” not just “Kleenex”), but here again there is no legal requirement"

To make matters more confusing, The Wall Street Journal capitalizes both words in "iPod Touch", while the New York Times does not.

Personally, I really don't care of the result, it just is abundantly clear that Wikipedia needs to put a guideline to stop wheel-wars.

Either make it explicitly clear that the second or third words in a product such as iPod Shuffle should be always (or never) capitalized or make it a judgement call like CamelCase.

So I propose either: 

In a multiword trademark all words should normally be capitalized
regardless if the trademark owner does not capitalize.

or 

In a multiword trademark all the followup words should capitalized 
following the trademark owners guidelines.

or a modification of the wishy-washy CamelCase line 

Multiword trademarks are a judgement call: Capitalizing each word 
or leaving followup words lowercase may be used where it reflects 
general usage and makes the trademark more readable

-- KelleyCook (talk) 14:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Chicago seems to speak to this issue at 8.165 and 8.167. –xeno (talk) 14:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Option 1 is the obvious call for me. It is natural to assume that any proper name in English follows title case. Apple made a deliberate choice to deviate from this with the iPod line, which is why it is so noticeable. Most reviewers have ignored Apple's dropping of the second capital too. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The guideline really doesn't need to address this specifically. "Capitalize trademarks" gets at this case just fine; it's just that the editors at the individual pages decided to ignore the guideline. Croctotheface (talk) 20:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested in how you came to the conclusion that "there doesn't appear to be consensus". The only arguments against the move on that page were "That's how Apple does it". I'm not convinced that there is a need for a new guideline, mainly because I don't believe there is any "loophole" that doesn't rely on legalistic tactics to "expose". I also don't believe you can claim "long-standing precedent", as there doesn't appear to have ever been a successful move to the non-capitalised titles, though in fairness we generally don't do "precedent". 217.36.107.9 (talk) 15:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk:ABN AMRO --NE2 20:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Does the guideline apply to company names? / ABN AMRO

Related discussion: Talk:ABN AMRO --NE2 20:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It might be advisable to modify or rename the guideline to deal with this kind of argument. Croctotheface (talk) 04:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

This is in response to the dispute involving the naming of the Dutch financial institution ABN AMRO which involves an abbreviation and an acronym standing for Algemene Bank Nederland-Amsterdam Roterdam Bank. There is already a mile-long discussion about this which is often heated in the Talk:ABN AMRO page. ABN AMRO is the legal name of this company as stated in all legal documents and company directories. Croctotheface wants to rename the article "ABN Amro" even though Amro is not a recognizable word. There have been both editing and renaming wars concering this which led this article to be protected from renaming. Journalistic citations are mixed as they use both "ABN AMRO" and "ABN Amro" and sources such as the New York Times and BBC News have used both names in news stories. So the guidelines should be modified to reflect legal names of corporations which also happen to be trademarks. Steelbeard1 (talk) 04:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Here's a link to the ongoing requested move discussion: Talk:ABN AMRO/Archives/2012#ABN AMRO vs. ABN Amro. It contains my argument, which includes this link to indicate the degree to which the two styles are used by secondary sources. Croctotheface (talk) 04:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
And if those secondary sources do not agree, then what the company calls itself should prevail. Steelbeard1 (talk) 04:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Where did you get that rule? Or did you just make it up now? Obviously not all secondary sources will agree on something in general. That doesn't mean we can't use unanimity amongst such sources. --C S (talk) 04:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Go to http://www.abnamro.com/ and see how many times you see ABN Amro versus ABN AMRO. Check your emails from employees of ABN AMRO. Check the contract documents you have with ABN AMRO. Why on earth are we trying to impose our internal house style guide on a company? We are essentially telling them they are wrong about their own name - titanic arrogance. The mix in external sources may be explained by a change in style at some point, or it might just be carelessness, but I don't see any reliable independent source that always uses the mixed-case version, and I do see that the company always uses the all-uppercase version. I am absolutely staggered that anyone could be so worked up about something so trivial. So ABN AMRO doesn't follow Wikipedia's MOS in its own self-description? And we should care why, exactly? If it helps you to rationalise it, AMRO is an acronym of Amsterdam and Rotterdam - call it an acronym and be done with it. Guy (Help!) 09:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
This is a style issue, not a naming issue. We are certainly free to change this guideline, but it's been the consensus for a while that we are not beholden to use the style that the company does simply because it's what the company does. As I've said before, that would force us to defer to just about anything that the company does, including use of colors or fonts. If you agree that color or font is not part of the name, then we are free to make (and we have made) the same determination regarding capitalization. It has nothing to do with "telling the company they're wrong" and everything to do with making a judgment about what style best serves the reader. It is my position that nonstandard styles do not serve the reader as well as standard styles. Furthermore, we can and should make clear that the company prefers a given style right at the top of the article. To the acronym argument, not all acronyms are capitalized, as we can see by the incredibly wide range of sources that do not capitalize this one. However, if your argument is that capitalizing acronyms is standard English, then it doesn't matter that it's what the company does, anyway. If the company used "Amro," I don't suspect that you would argue that we should use "AMRO" just because it's an acronym. Croctotheface (talk) 14:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
No, it's a name issue. It's about how the company chooses to name itself, based on the acronymic Amsterdam and Roterdam, which could be rendered AmRo, Amro or AMRO. It seems they have now settled on AMRO. Guy (Help!) 17:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
So, to be clear, you believe that the guideline should not apply to Time magazine or Fox News or whatever else? It should just be "use what the company would want us to use"? Croctotheface (talk) 21:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Now you are getting silly as colours and font styles have nothing to do with the legal name of a corporation. Steelbeard1 (talk) 14:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
But capitalization (as opposed to spelling) has? – Cyrus XIII (talk) 16:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

In the above ABN AMRO vs. "ABN Amro" straw poll link, the "ABN AMRO" side is three times larger than the "ABM Amro" side as I type this. So the MOS warriors are trailing currently. Steelbeard1 (talk) 17:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

  • This is all getting a bit silly. It's a proper noun, and actually we only have one (primary) source for the correct capitalisaiton, being the company's website. None of the other sources are discussing the capitalisation itself. If it were a word or acronym then the original research of counting Google hits might just about be defensible, in the absence of a proper lexicographical authority, but it's not a word or acronym in the commonly understood sense, it's a proper noun or perhaps trademark, like PricewaterhouseCoopers or SunGard or whatever. I have no idea how we'd andle an article on Manca Mora if we had one - they style themselves "bibm" instead of "BIBM". But in general, anyone who is wedded to the idea of consistency in a work which is itself committed to reflecting only what is verifiable in the real world (which is itself about as inconsistent as you can get) - well, that way lies madness, and I sincerely advise that people stop thinking that we can even pretend to impose symmetry on the real world in this way. Marketing people do gratuitously faff around with capitalisation and case and so on, it's what they are paid for, but any OTRS volunteer will tell you that companies are extremely careful about their brands. It's very clear from the primary source (company website) that they have invested considerable effort in being entirely consistent in this, so it's a good bet that they are quite serious about it. We don't know why they decided to use AMRO not Amro, and I don't see any secondary sources which say so, so we're stuck with what we have, which is a primary source on one side, a house style guide which is ours not theirs on the other, and a load of original research in between. Until we have something form outside which says the bank is wrong, I think it would be very silly to change it. Guy (Help!) 18:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I guess the dispute comes down, then, to whether we should follow the practice of independent secondary sources or the practice of a single primary source, the company itself. Croctotheface (talk) 18:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
If the secondary sources do not agree, then the primary source--the company itself--should prevail. Steelbeard1 (talk) 18:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
The secondary sources basically do agree. You've cited a single NYT article from 2000 as evidence that they "use both styles," but that's eight years ago. The WSJ links that capitalize do not use the term in the prose, they use it as a section header for something like a company or stock profile. If we did stock profiles here, "AMRO" might be the way to go. Do you really think that when secondary sources disagree, we should go with whatever the subject would want us to say? Is that a good rule if, say, secondary sources don't agree about whether someone was involved in a scandal? Croctotheface (talk) 19:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
The primary source should never prevail, ever. Branding and PR folks are paid to give impact to a brand, and will frequently do non-standard things in order to make their brand stand out from the rest. I would go so far as to argue that the primary source is not a helpful source for guidance. As the guideline says, "use the style closest to standard English" - and there will generally be consensus on what that is. If there isn't a clear winner on the "standard" front, then a look to the secondary sources is in order. A discussion should never hinge on "owner's preference". This is not to say that a discussion should never be resolved in favour of the primary source, only that it should not be the guiding influence in the discussion. In the case at hand, "AMRO" being a contraction of "Amsterdam-Rotterdam" there is a case to be made for "AMRO" independently of "owner's choice". Some style guides would prefer "Amro", as the pronunciation is two syllables rather than A-M-R-O. 217.36.107.9 (talk) 15:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
All style guides I've seen call for "Amro," but otherwise you raise an important point that the guideline should address more specifically. There is at least an argument to be made that all caps is standard there, which is an argument I would be happy to have (and even lose) if it means that we're off this "official/legal name" kick. We should figure out what this guideline should say about acronyms and whether to distinguish between those formed from taking the first letter of words (like FIFA/Fifa) and those like AMRO/Amro that take parts of words and where each letter doesn't stand for something. Croctotheface (talk) 17:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can see there are no indepednent secondary sources discussing the naming issue. Lots of people discussing the company, but to infer from that that they have chosen to use one or the other for any principled or stylistic reason (especially since the usage is not consistent in the external sources) is original research. We don't actually have even a primary source discussing the capitalisation issue, all we have is the company's clearly demonstrated preference. As I have noted elsewhere, companies are very jealous of their styles and marks and this is a frequent source of complaints to the foundation. We appear to be attempting to legislate the styling of an acronym; saying in affect that while the company chooses to represent Am-Ro as AMRO, they should be using Amro. Why is our judgement better than theirs on this? We do not recapitalise or reinsert spaces in PricewaterhouseCoopers (however absurd that is). They choose to represent their acronym in uppercase as with NATO, not in mixed case as with Radar. Surely that's their prerogative? The real world does not conform to our style guide, and if you try to make it so then you will surely go mad. Guy (Help!) 17:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It's been a while since this article was linked from here, but it's definitely time once again. We should also find the relevant sections of Chicago and AP style and confirm what they say about this issue. Croctotheface (talk) 07:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this guideline does apply to legal names of companies; and it says "call the company what other people do." Thus it does not forbid caps; it forbids caps which haven't become normal usage. Thus, we use IBM, not International Business Machines Corporation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
And since other people call the comp[any ABN AMRO and ABN Amro, there does not appear to me to be any problem with using what the company very obviously prefers. Guy (Help!) 17:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I think you're addressing a case that hasn't really arisen here. This is about REALTOR vs Realtor or ABN AMRO vs ABN Amro. I doubt that anyone involved in this dispute would argue that "IBM" is bad style. Croctotheface (talk) 17:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
The fact that "AMRO" (an acronym) can be "pronounced like a word" doesn't mean we should spell it like one. See NATO. –xeno (talk) 17:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
If it were not an acronym, you'd agree that we should not use all caps? Croctotheface (talk) 06:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

To answer the title question: Yes, this guideline applies to company names. Looking at the guideline now it appears to be less clear than it used to be. Essentially the goal is to look at the formatting styles in common use (of which there may be several or only one) and then choose a style that resembles normal English (often Title Case but not always). This has the effect of avoiding POV problems associated with giving certain names special highlighting just because the company may want it (e.g. "Macy*s", "[yellow tail]", "TIME Magazine"), and helps establish a consistent style for Wikipedia. Personally, in the case of ABN AMRO/ABN Amro, both styles seem common. So either would seem to be a valid option. However, using half-caps, half-title case (e.g. ABN Amro) is sufficiently unusual that I don't see any particular advantage to that. So for me, I feel this decision is basically a coin flip as neither version is particularly more natural, and would be happy to let people use whichever version they like. Dragons flight (talk) 18:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The poll in Talk:ABN AMRO concerning renaming the article to "ABN Amro" has been closed and the result is "no consensus with a significant majority opposing the name change". So the ABN AMRO article name stands. Steelbeard1 (talk) 19:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Even if it were to be renamed, it should be to ABN AmRo, not Amro. At any rate, there are innumerable quasi-acronyms given in acronym (all-caps) form; no reason this should be any different, especially if that is the legal name of the company. 68.35.40.113 (talk) 02:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
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