Technical publications professionals need to follow legal guidelines that cover the proper use and marking of trademarks and the protection of intellectual property. Trademarks, copyrighted works, and trade secrets are among a company’s most valuable assets. Everyone who is involved in the preparation of materials that use trademarks or who creates materials subject to copyright has a responsibility for securing and protecting the copyrights and trademarks.
This chapter explains how to use and designate corporate trademarks. This chapter also explains how to protect your company’s intellectual property and trade secrets. The topics in this chapter include:
“Copyrights” on page 152
“Trademarks” on page 155
“Third-Party Web Site References” on page 162
“Protection of Proprietary/Confidential Information” on page 165
Note
Note — In this chapter, the term “trademark” refers to a company’s master brand and family brands, including associated logos, marks, and other designations. These brands, logos, marks, and other designations are used to identify a company’s products and services.
When you see the term “registered trademark” or “service mark,” information is specific to that type of trademark.
This chapter sometimes advises you to check with the legal department in your company. If you do not have a legal department, check with counsel specializing in trademark and copyright law. The Kuestler Law Web site at http://www.kuestlerlaw.com provides information in this area, plus links to many U.S. and international Web sites relevant to these issues.
This section provides the following information about copyrights:
General copyright information
Works that must be copyrighted
Copyright notice
Third-party copyrighted information
If you have copyright questions that are not addressed in this section, you might want to consult the Web site of the United States Copyright Office at http://www.loc.gov/copyright/.
Copyright is a set of distinct rights granted by federal law for most literary, musical, dramatic, and other types of intellectual works, including computer programs. U.S. copyright laws establish a single system of protection for all published and unpublished “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated.” With limited exceptions, no one may copy or reproduce, display, prepare derivative works, or distribute copies of copyrighted works to the public by sale, rental, lease, lending, or other transfer of ownership without permission of the copyright owner.
While no universal international copyright protection exists, United States copyrighted works might be protected in foreign countries under various treaties and conventions.
This section discusses these copyright topics:
Copyright duration
Copyright registration
Copyright compared with a trade secret
A copyright, unlike a trademark or patent, exists from the time of the creation of a work. For copyright purposes, a work is created when the work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. For example, a chapter that you write becomes protected by copyright law the moment that you save the chapter to a file.
Even though a copyright notice is not required for a copyright to exist, certain legal benefits accrue when the notice appears on the work.
A copyright exists for a finite number of years, generally the lifetime of the author plus 50 years. If the work is done as a work for hire for an employer, the copyright exists for 75 years from the date of publication. After that time, the work becomes part of the public domain.
Registering a copyright is not necessary for copyright ownership, but registration takes full advantage of the legal protection afforded copyrighted works.
To register a work, you must submit a copyright registration application to the United States Copyright Office. A copy of the work should be included as deposit. In the case of software, a portion of the source code is included. The material usually consists of the first and last 25 pages, with portions of the material blocked out to protect trade secret information.
The following acts can usually only occur if a copyrighted work is registered:
Filing an infringement action
Obtaining statutory damages
Obtaining attorney’s fees
Enlisting the United States Customs Service to bar the importation of illegal copies of the registered work
A federally registered copyright also gives the registrant various procedural advantages should the registrant want to take action against an infringer.
Copyright does not protect the ideas and concepts contained in a work, but only the expression of such ideas and concepts. Thus, copyright is not always the best single means of protection for material that contains valuable information that can be exploited.
Confidential business information and information that pertains to potential patent opportunity or application are usually best protected as trade secrets.
To safeguard a trade secret, appropriately classify the information. Be sure to include the corresponding proprietary label. Restrict disclosure to third parties. For information about how to protect proprietary and confidential information, see “Protection of Proprietary/Confidential Information” on page 165.
The following works that are intended for distribution outside your company could benefit from a copyright notice:
Publications such as books, articles, white papers, and brochures
Advertising copy and news releases
Photographs
Catalogs
Online documents, including pages on the Web
Product labels
Product documentation
Software applications
Source code and binary code for software products
Source documents for which the source is distributed or published
You typically include a copyright notice with any documents or artwork intended for public distribution. If you do not know whether a copyright notice is appropriate for a particular type of work, check with your legal counsel.
A work that is suitable for copyright protection should contain a proper copyright notice. A copyright notice consists of the following elements:
The word “Copyright”
Do not use (c) or (C) to mean copyright.
If space is very tight and the text is not being converted into ASCII, you can use the symbol ©.
The year of first publication of the work
The name of the owner of the copyright
Your legal department might have a specifically approved copyright statement. The copyright portion of this statement should not be modified (except for the date) without consulting your legal department. The following example is a typical copyright notice.
© 2003 PlirgSoft, Inc., 1854 Hayovel Street, Mountain View, California 94043–1100 U.S.A.
All rights reserved. This product and related documentation are protected by copyright and are distributed under licenses restricting their use, copying, distribution, and decompilation. No part of this product or related documentation may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written authorization of PlirgSoft, Inc., and its licensors, if any.
A previously copyrighted document that is recast, transformed, or adapted is considered a “derivative work” for purposes of copyright. For example, a document is a derivative work if you add a new section, chapter, or appendix.
If a document is a derivative work, change the date in the copyright notice to the date that applies to the created derivative work. Your legal counsel might require the inclusion of the earlier dates in a copyright notice for a derivative work.
A document is not a derivative work if the material contains the following types of changes:
Fixing of incorrect spelling or style errors
Changing of the chapter order
Application of new templates
If a document is not a derivative work, use the original copyright date. Do not change the copyright date or add other dates.
If you are using third-party copyrighted material, follow these guidelines:
If you are paraphrasing information from other publications, use a regular citation, such as a footnote.
You do not need to obtain permission from the information source.
“Endnotes, Footnotes, and Bibliographies” on page 49 explains how to cite information from other sources.
If you are reproducing exact tables or exact graphs or are using several paragraphs verbatim, you must obtain permission from the information source.
Contact your legal counsel for details.
The scope and strength of a company’s exclusive rights in its trademarks are weakened when the trademarks are not used properly. This precept applies even when the trademarks are registered. A number of well-known names, such as “escalator,” “aspirin,” and “cellophane,” were once trademarks. Because these names have fallen into common usage, the terms are now generic and can be used by anyone.
For more information in this area, you might want to consult the Web site of the United States Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov/.
The following terms are associated with trademarks and are defined as follows:
Trademark. A word, phrase, name, symbol, logo, sound, color, smell, or combination of these elements that are used by a company to identify its particular brand of products
Trademarks fall into two major categories:
Trademarks that have been registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the trademark offices of other countries
Trademarks that are claimed by a company but have not been registered
Both types of trademarks can be protected in the United States and some foreign countries. Registered trademarks, however, are subject to stronger enforcement measures. Registered trademarks might be required in certain countries to prevent other parties from “pirating” a company’s trademarks. In some cases, a trademark dispute could disrupt shipments of a company’s products.
Service mark. Similar to a trademark except that a service mark is used in connection with the provision of a service
A service mark usually appears in advertising and collateral material for the service and is used within the same general guidelines as trademarks. See “Proper Use of Trademarks” on page 157 and “Trademarks and Appropriate Nouns” on page 159.
Appropriate noun. A noun that characterizes a product, technology, service, or program offered by a company
For examples of how to use appropriate nouns, see “Trademarks and Appropriate Nouns” on page 159.
Trademark attribution. A ™ or SM or ® symbol that appears after a trademark in text, and an entry in a trademark legend that states what company owns the trademark
Trademark legend. Trademark attributions, without trademark symbols, for all trademarks that are marked in a particular document
Trade name. The name of a company, or its abbreviation, under which the company conducts business
Do not place a trademark symbol after a trade name. Some trade names, though, are also used as trademarks. For example, Sun is the trade name of a company (Sun Microsystems, Inc.) but Sun™ is also the trademark for that company’s line of products. Whether to use the ™ designation depends upon the particular reference being made. Make sure that trade names that are also trademarks are used correctly. Trade names refer to companies, while trademarks distinguish the products and services that companies provide.
To protect trademarks, you must have an understanding of the following topics:
Trademark symbols
Trademark symbol placement
Trademark usage
Trademarks and appropriate nouns
The guidelines in this section pertain to print documentation. If you work solely on web pages, determine which of the following guidelines are applicable to your work and use the guidelines accordingly.
Follow these guidelines when using trademark symbols:
Use the appropriate symbol ( ™ or SM or ®).
If your authoring environment does not include one or more of these symbols, do the following:
Type TM or SM or R.
Apply the superscript character format.
Lower the point size, if necessary and as authoring tools permit.
Try to match the point size to the size of any related symbols.
If your authoring environment does not contain superscript capabilities, enclose the TM, SM, or R in parentheses, for example, “Plirg(TM) workstation.”
The guidelines in this section pertain to print documentation. If you work solely on web pages, determine which of the following guidelines are applicable to your work and use the guidelines accordingly.
Follow these guidelines to ensure the correct placement of trademark symbols:
Most publications use the appropriate symbol to designate a trademark at the first occurrence and most prominent use of the trademark:
On book spines and book covers
On title pages, in chapter titles and appendix titles, and in headings, depending on your documentation group
Because documentation groups use various authoring tools and publishing methods, check with your group for guidelines about using trademark symbols in titles and headings.
In text
The first occurrence in text can be in the preface, a chapter, an appendix, or similar text element. If a document is lengthy, however, repeat the symbol in any chapter or other text element that contains many occurrences of the trademark.
On web pages, in the place where readers are most likely to look on the web site
Use good judgment when adding a symbol at the first occurrence and most prominent use of a trademark. For example, readers might not read a preface or other introductory text where a symbol is likely to first appear. Repeat the symbol in a section that readers are more likely to see.
If the same trademark appears in a document in two or more product names, only mark the trademark at the first occurrence in text.
For example, “The Plirg™ 5763 server, the Plirg 5618 server, and the Plirg 5600 server were delivered to the customer today.” Even though the Plirg trademark appears three times, only mark the first occurrence of the trademark.
If a trademark and service mark have the same name and both types of marks appear in the same document, one mark takes precedence.
Only use the appropriate symbol at the most prominent use and the first occurrence of the trademark or service mark in text.
For example, “Plirg offers the PlirgSoftSM Manager Central service with the PlirgSoft operating environment.” In this instance, “PlirgSoft” is used first as a service mark. Thus, you do not have to use the trademark symbol when PlirgSoft is used as a trademark in the same document. However, try to do the following:
If the document primarily describes a product, write so that the ™ symbol is prominent and appears first.
If the document primarily describes a service, write so that the SM symbol is prominent and appears first.
To ensure that trademarks are used correctly, follow these guidelines:
Use trademarks as adjectives, not as nouns or verbs.
Incorrect: UNIX ® is fun and easy to use.
Correct: The UNIX ® operating system is fun and easy to use.
Incorrect: Plirgatize the system.
Correct: Enhance the system for the Plirg™ platform.
For information about the nouns to use with trademarks, see “Trademarks and Appropriate Nouns” on page 159.
Do not use trademarks in the possessive or the plural.
Form the possessive or plural from the appropriate noun that the trademark describes.
Incorrect: My dog ate the Macintosh’s microphone.
Correct: My dog ate the Macintosh™ system’s microphone.
Incorrect: Turn off your Selectric.
Correct: Turn off your Selectric™ typewriter.
Do not hyphenate trademarks.
Incorrect: Use the PlirgEd-based application.
Correct: Use the application that is based on the PlirgEd™ technology.
Do not change the typeface of trademarks from the typeface of the surrounding text.
Do not parenthetically define acronyms and abbreviations that are trademarks.
Do not abbreviate trademarks.
Do not shorten trademarks.
For example, do not write “Whiz Write” for PlirgSoft™ Whiz Write. Use a trademark in its complete form.
Trademarks are proper adjectives. As such, they modify nouns. The term “common noun” (sometimes called “generic noun”) refers to the noun that a trademark describes. Always link a trademark with an appropriate common noun. Do not capitalize the common noun.
Follow these guidelines when working with appropriate nouns:
Use appropriate nouns with trademarks.
The noun does not always have to follow the trademark. However, you must write clearly so that readers know which trademark is used with the particular product, technology, service, or program described by the noun.
For example, “PlirgSoft recently enhanced these technologies: Whiz Write™, Access Editor™, and PlirgEd™.” The noun “technologies” is used with the Whiz Write, Access Editor, and PlirgEd trademarks.
Do not capitalize appropriate nouns unless the nouns are part of the name of the product or service.
Define the common noun and use it consistently.
Repeat the definition after each major heading if you think this repetition would help readers who are retrieving the information online. If the context of the reference is obvious to the reader, you do not need to repeat the common noun’s definition too often.
Do not use nouns such as “developer” or “vision” with trademarks or service marks because these terms are not products or services that your company provides.
For example, you would not write “PlirgSoft developer,” “PlirgSoft software developer,” or “developer of PlirgSoft software.” These phrases give the impression that a developer is the owner of PlirgSoft software. In this example, PlirgSoft software comes only from Plirg. PlirgSoft is a trademark of Plirg, Inc., not of a software developer.
However, you can create a “defined term” for a trademark and then use the defined term throughout the document. For example, “Developers that write to the PlirgSoft platform (’PlirgSoft developers’) use code examples as a main resource.” “PlirgSoft developers” is now a defined term that you can use in the document.
If you use an appropriate noun in place of a trademark, choose a noun that does not conflict with related terms in the document.
Choose the appropriate noun, indicate the full name of the product or service associated with the noun (often, if helpful), and use the noun consistently.
For example, sometimes the phrase “operating environment” might be a useful replacement for “PlirgSoft operating environment.” However, you would not be able to use just “operating environment” when comparing the PlirgSoft operating environment with another operating environment.
The following list provides some examples of frequently used common nouns in the computer industry:
application | interface | screen |
architecture | kernel | server |
client/server systems | machine | software |
distributing computing solution | operating environment | system |
environment | operating system | system software |
equipment | package | technology |
feautures | peripheral | tool |
files | platform | unit |
graphical use interface (GUI) | printer | window environment |
hardware | program | workstation |
Treat “third-party trademarks” (trademarks from other companies) with the same respect as trademarks from your company. Use them as proper adjectives with the correct ®, ™, or SM notices, and give them appropriate attribution as trademarks.
Follow these guidelines when using third-party trademarks:
Mark third-party trademarks with the correct ® or ™ notice on book covers and the first time they appear in text, including chapters, appendixes, and the preface. Most publications do not put trademark symbols in the table of contents, chapter or appendix titles, section heads, tables, or captions.
Add the third-party attribution to the trademark legend of the legal notice.
Make an effort to consult product groups or marketing groups, or the third parties themselves, to make sure that third-party trademarks are given appropriate attributions. Corporate Web sites often provide such information. If you cannot obtain the information, mark the third-party product name with a ™ symbol. Include a general attribution similar to the following example in the trademark legend after the specific attributions:
All other product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Only put trademarks of different companies next to each other if there is a license or agreement between the two parties.
For example, you would not write “Plirg Ada” unless a licensing agreement existed between Plirg, Inc., and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Do not parenthetically define existing acronyms or abbreviations that are trademarked terms.
A third-party Web site might contain information that you want to reference in a document. To choose and reference an appropriate third-party site involves the following tasks:
Determining which third-party site to reference
Determining which third-party URL to use
Adding a disclaimer and any required third-party wording
Preventing unapproved references to third-party sites
Note
Note — The guidelines in this section pertain to pointing to third-party sites in printed documentation. If you work solely on web pages, determine which of the following guidelines are applicable to your work and use the guidelines accordingly. Considerations can include your staffing resources and whether to point to nice-to-know information. Also, consider the length of time the material might be available online and whether technical input is required.
This section provides guidelines for referring to third-party Web sites.
Sometimes, a third-party Web site might be the best source of information for a topic. If you want to point to a third-party site, first find out if the site prohibits such use.
Often, a third-party site has a Terms of Use page that is available from its home page or legal notice page. The Terms of Use page likely states the third-party’s policy for pointing to the site’s contents.
If the site clearly states that you cannot point to its contents, do not point to that site.
If you are not sure whether you can point to the site’s contents, contact your legal counsel.
When you know that you can legally point to a particular third-party site, ask engineering staff or subject matter experts to review the material. The reviewers can determine the value and accuracy of the material and might even be able to provide a better resource.
Allow extra time in your documentation schedule to gather this legal information and technical data.
After determining which third-party site to use as a source of information, point to a “safe,” pertinent, and easily accessible URL:
Check the third-party Terms of Use page for possible restrictions on pointing to a particular URL.
If the third-party terms of use only allow pointing to the home page, then point to the home page.
If the third-party terms of use do not prohibit pointing to a page other than the home page, you can point to another page.
If you seem to be taking a tour of the site to reach the required information, consider using another source.
Point to need-to-know information, not to information that is nice to know.
For example, you might point developers to a standards site such as http://www.ietf.org/rfc, which provides Request for Comments (RFC) documents. Do not direct users to a general, nice-to-know site, one that discusses computer literacy, for example, or to information that essentially duplicates other content.
Decide whether users might have difficulty accessing the information or might lose patience waiting for information to be displayed.
For example, does the site take a long time to load due to large graphics files? Does the site require plug-ins or other software that users might have to download? Has the site crashed on any occasions when you have tried to access it?
Use text to point to a third-party site.
For guidelines on referencing a URL, see “Referencing URLs” on page 228.
Your authoring tool might enable you to use “link text,” which is text that you want to appear as the cross-reference. Clicking the link text takes users to the URL that you also specify when creating the link text.
Link to a third-party site by clicking on a logo or other image only if the site’s terms of use expressly permit the use of the logo or image.
Include the following elements in any document that points to third-party sites:
A disclaimer similar to the following example, which appears as a Note:
Note
Note — Plirg is not responsible for the availability of third-party Web sites mentioned in this document. Plirg does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, or other material on or available from such sites or resources. Plirg will not be responsible or liable for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods, or services that are available on or through any such sites or resources.
If the third-party site’s terms of use mandate the use of special wording, make sure that you add the wording as required.
When referring to third-party Web sites, use caution:
Do not endorse or criticize a book or other content that you reference.
Be straightforward and neutral. For example, “For information about UNIX commands, see
http://www.unix4fun.com.”If pointing to a third-party site is prohibited by third-party freeware being shipped with your product, do not point to the site.
Do not use any type of framing or inline linking.
The page that you link to cannot appear in the web browser simultaneously with the page from which you are linking.
You might not want to point to a competitor’s book.
Proprietary/Confidential information is defined as any information that when mismanaged, compromised, and ultimately disclosed to unauthorized parties could be detrimental to your company’s competitive advantage or could adversely affect your company’s operation of business. This information might be technical, financial, business strategic, or operational.
Because this information is not commonly known to others, the information provides your company with a financial advantage in the marketplace. This information has a property value to your company.
Generally, these forms of proprietary and confidential information are safeguarded as trade secrets. A trade secret can be any information, technical or nontechnical, that is considered proprietary and confidential. Do not release trade secret information to competitors or the public domain.
This section discusses the types of information that are proprietary and provides guidelines for handling proprietary/confidential information:
Identifying proprietary/confidential information
Protecting proprietary/confidential documents
Protecting electronic communication
Protecting information that appears in examples
The following types of information are proprietary/confidential:
Drafts of manuals, white papers, and product notes
Technical data
Object code
Source code and source documents
Flow diagrams
Schematics
Real host names of computers
Public IP addresses
Domain names
Business data
Financial results (except publicly published results)
Merger and acquisition activity
Alliance negotiations
Purchasing and bid data
Marketing strategies
Customer lists and profiles
Detailed information about new products before public announcement
Project code names and descriptions
Product features (processing speed, graphics capability)
Target dates
Pricing
Market placement and strategies, and customer information
Costs and other financial information
Bugs
Design data
Diagnostic and reliability data
Email messages and web pages of a proprietary or confidential nature
Presentation materials, including handouts, transparencies, and slides
Employee personnel information, such as performance reviews and salary information
Proprietary/Confidential documents must be identified as such through appropriate classification and corresponding labeling. This identification must be in force from the time the documents are created until the documents are released or are securely destroyed.
This section explains the three most commonly used proprietary classifications. If your authoring tool can produce bold type, use bold with these classifications:
Company Name Proprietary/Confidential: Internal Use Only
Use this label for general information, such as job listings that are distributed throughout the company but must remain confidential.
Company Name Proprietary/Confidential: Need-to-Know
Use this label for all prerelease product documentation and information, such as manuals, release notes, white papers, and specifications, which are distributed to product teams. Remove the proprietary label before producing the final version of the document unless the document remains confidential. For example, do not remove the proprietary label from certain source code documents.
Company Name Proprietary/Confidential: Registered
Use this label for highly sensitive information, where numbered copies are made and carefully controlled.
Most documentation prepared according to these guidelines bear the label “ Company Name Proprietary/Confidential: Need-to-Know.” If you have questions about proprietary labels, contact your legal counsel.
Information that is shared in an electronic format can seem less tangible than a piece of paper. If the information is considered proprietary/confidential, the sensitivity of the information remains the same as a printed document. The information must also be treated the same as a printed document. To protect electronic communication, follow these guidelines:
Identify proprietary/confidential information in electronic form.
Use the appropriate label in email, files, and directories.
Confirm the names on an alias before sending information to a large audience.
Create smaller aliases for particularly sensitive topics. Do not distribute messages beyond the alias or to addresses outside your company.
Do not post proprietary/confidential information to external Web sites.
Information classified as proprietary/confidential should not be placed on or transmitted over the Internet or other public network.
If you create sample text, files, screen captures, illustrations, or any other types of examples in documentation, you should protect certain types of information. This information includes names of computers, or IP addresses, or possibly entire network domains.
Follow these guidelines:
Do not use real host names of computers at your company in documentation.
Suppose you create files with real computer names to test the software being documented. If you want to include these files in a document, you must change the real host names to fictitious names. Try to create culturally neutral, easily translated host names, such as
host1,newhost, ormyhost.Do not use public IP addresses in documentation.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has set aside three blocks of the IP address space for use in corporate intranets.
The IANA’s numbering scheme enables a company to use private, “internal” IP addresses inside a firewall. Because these private IP addresses cannot be used by the public, their use in documentation does not conflict with IP addresses used on the Internet.
The following table shows the range of numbers that the IANA has set aside for internal IP addresses. The numeral 255 is the highest number that you can use in respective portions of the IP address. When you use IP addresses as examples in documentation, you should stay within this numbering scheme.
Table 8-1. IP Addresses for Use in Documentation
Network Class
Starting Number
Ending Number
A
10.0.0.010.255.255.255B
172.16.0.0172.31.255.255C
192.168.0.0192.168.255.255For more information about these standards, specify the RFC number, RFC 1918, at the RFC repository for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Web site at http://www.ietf.org/rfc.
Do not use real domain names in documentation.
Instead, use these domain names in examples:
example.comexample.netexample.org
Any subdomain can be combined with these domain names as appropriate, for example,
janepc.example.com.For details about standard domain names, retrieve RFC 2606 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc.
If a screen capture contains a URL that is not to be made public, change the URL and then take the screen capture.