<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family: Verdana;font-size: 12.0px;"><div>Thank you for this information. German trademark law is very strict. You have to actually use a trademark to avoid “dilutions”, so companies will use the ® and ™ symbols as often as possible and force other companies to do the same. However, you are also not allowed to use ® for an unregistered trademark. A “dilution” would make the trademark subject for deletion and the trademark can become a generic term, especially when also listed in dictionaries. This, for example, happened with the trademarks Flex and Thermoskanne.</div>
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<div>The 🄮 symbol was used in dictionaries and technical documents as a general copyright symbol, when it is not checked whether a trademark is registered or not. This minimizes two risks: The dictionary company does not have to check if the trademark is registered or not and there is no danger to be sued by the trademark owner.</div>
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<div style="margin:0 0 10px 0;"><b>Gesendet:</b> Freitag, 20. September 2024 um 08:35 Uhr<br/>
<b>Von:</b> "Martin J. Dürst via Unicode" <unicode@corp.unicode.org><br/>
<b>An:</b> "Marius Spix" <marius.spix@web.de><br/>
<b>Cc:</b> "unicode@corp.unicode.org" <unicode@corp.unicode.org><br/>
<b>Betreff:</b> Re: Aw: RE: Position of the registered sign</div>
<div name="quoted-content">Not really relevant to the present discussion, but:<br/>
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On 2024-09-16 21:53, Marius Spix via Unicode wrote:<br/>
> The difference is that the circled Wz makes no difference between registered<br/>
> trademarks, unregistered trademarks and unregistered service marks.<br/>
> It was only used by German dictionaries to avoid lawsuits, because generic terms<br/>
> commonly used in colloquial language were added to the dictionary, for example:<br/>
> Föhn (hair dryer), Pritt (glue stick), Tempo (tissues), Zewa (paper towels),<br/>
> Edding (marker pen), Post-it (sticky note) or Pampers (diapers).<br/>
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With respect to Föhn, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind</a> says:<br/>
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"The German word Föhn (pronounced the same way) also means 'hairdryer',<br/>
while the word Fön is a genericized trademark today owned by AEG."<br/>
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Regards, Martin.<br/>
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