Do You Put Registered Trademark On Book Titles

Editors are frequently asked whether it's permissible for writers to mention product or business names in books. The short answer is yes.

The long answer is be careful.

By the nature of doing business, companies put their brands into the public forum and in fact ordinarily appreciate publicity. Simply you practise need to ensure you lot're not needlessly casting them in a negative function.

For example, if your novel takes place in Ybor City, Florida, information technology would create a great sense of identify to have your characters dine at the historic Columbia Restaurant, founded in 1905. That would cause locals to say, "yes, I know that restaurant." Information technology adds realism to the story.

Maybe yous don't need to specify the town, merely you want to mention Denny's considering you demand a place where your characters can meet in the heart of the nighttime. That'due south fine. But if it will exist a offense scene, information technology's probably better to make upward a simulated all-night diner.

Trademark owners can't cease you from using their product names: your hero tin bulldoze a Toyota to Starbucks and piece of work on his MacBook. The trademark owner will ask you to capitalize it as registered, equally the capital B in MacBook, and they would prefer that you not use information technology in a negative context, east.g., "the victim was found in a Dumpster backside Denny'southward." (Note Dumpster is capped considering it's a trademark!)

Trademark owners often ask that their trademarks not be used in a way that doesn't stand for their product. An editor at the newspaper I used to piece of work for once used the phrase "snap crackle pop" in an editorial that had nothing to practise with breakfast cereal. She got a end-and-desist letter from Kellogg Co.'s trademark lawyers. But if she had used the phrase to describe Rice Krispies, we'd have been fine.

Libel is another matter. One must be careful not to defame a person, product, or company in writing, unjustly. Those writing almost the financial crunch need pull no punches in naming the companies that contributed to the housing market boom and bosom, as long equally what they report is true. Just if, for example, your memoir speculates about malfeasance at a company merely you lack proof, yous'd better run the story by a lawyer first. News organizations do this often.

Yous don't demand permission to refer to a company or product past name. But do ensure that y'all are doing so in a respectful fashion.