: When is mentioning a trademark necessary? If I'm making a web site, brochure, flier, etc., when must I have trademark information in the fine print? Presumably if I mention a product such as

@XinRu324

When do you need to mention a trademark? In my opinion, every time you are in doubt.
This comes from the fact that a trademark, especially a registered one, is commercially very important - it can make a huge difference when registering a domain name, for instance, and companies are very likely to enforce it.
Thus, why not just mention it when you are in doubt and avoid all the fuss?

But then, I am no lawyer

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@Jennifer810

You must follow a trademark owner's guidelines in cases where your publication or website is selling or advertising trademarked products. (See the Dell website, for example, or any of their brochures.) Your power tool brochure might have a "fine print" bit with the masthead and general copyright material, to the effect that the names of products mentioned in the brochure are trademarks owned by their respective manufacturers, but more likely you would simply follow each company's guidelines concerning displaying their marks, without further mention.

This kind of thing comes up especially in co-op advertising, where companies whose products are being advertised help to defray the cost of producing the catalog or brochure. Sometimes that's the only way a distributor or retailer can afford to produce one. If you're designing such a piece, be sure to get all the relevant usage guidelines from the respective companies.

A particular case where it is common to need a separate panel or "fine print" paragraph is in marketing collateral (print or web) for a product that also mentions trademarks owned by someone other than the main product being described or advertised. If you're writing a sell sheet for Acme's new CodeSifter product, that works with Java, Windows, OS X and Unix, all of which are trademarks, you would include a legal block that says so. In a case like that, it's a good idea to have the copy vetted by an attorney before printing a 25,000 run.

If your website or publication is referring to trademarked names as part of editorial, news, or similar copy, it seems to be considered sufficient to capitalize trademarked or copyrighted names, just as you would company or personal names. In theory, a reviewer or article author should write "Windows®", the first time the name is mentioned in an article, but I don't recall ever seeing that done except in marketing collateral of some kind, or official Microsoft publications (but not often there, either). You do NOT need to add a fine print declaration of trademark ownership for any kind of journalistic or editorial use.

You WILL hear from trademark owners if you don't capitalize their marks, by the way. If someone is drinking a certain brand of cola, it's a Coke, not a coke. You can enjoy eating an apple, but if it runs software, it's an Apple.

Browse tech magazine or review websites (one of the big guys, like arstechnica.com, cnet.com, pcmag.com) (all of whom are advised by excellent lawyers), and see what they do.

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