RE: [dita] Should <tm> allow images or logoized content?

["Esrig, Bruce (Bruce)" <esrig@lucent.com>]

Using the US Patent and Trademark office site as an example ...

 

We could specify that if the trademark consists of something other than simple text, an attribute must contain text that gives the Word Mark that corresponds to the typed drawing. The USPTO notes that audio and fragrance trademarks may not have a Word Mark.

 

The site www.uspto.gov contains a set of search interfaces (called TESS) to the trademarks database.

The URLs below contain session information ("state=") and so are only presented for the sake of illustration.

 

Example: Lucent http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=k88c9g.3.3

 

TESS help page: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=help&state=k88c9g.4.3

 

Bruce Esrig

 

==============================

 

Definition (US) of the types of trademarks:

Mark Drawing Code [MD]

This field provides a code to indicate the type of mark drawing.

The following table provides the approximate occurrences of each of the 7 mark drawing codes with their text descriptions.

Occurrences	Code	Description
38,959	0	UNKNOWN
2,490,811	1	TYPED DRAWING
126,114	2	DESIGN ONLY
649,133	3	DESIGN PLUS WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS
0	4	STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
262,648	5	WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM
219	6	FOR SITUATIONS FOR WHICH NO DRAWING IS POSSIBLE, SUCH AS SOUND

 

To search in this field, enter the desired mark drawing code number in quotes with the [MD] search field tag.

Example: Enter "2"[MD] for design only marks. Enter "6"[MD] for marks with no drawing (sensory marks such as sound and fragrance marks).

 -----Original Message-----
From: Don Day [mailto:dond@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 4:58 AM
To: DITA TC list
Subject: [dita] Should <tm> allow images or logoized content?

Should the content model for <tm> be changed to allow images or logoized trademarks?

The original intent of the element is to support string-based processing of trademarks for consistent presentation within business policy (such as, "upon output, show the trademark symbol only for each FIRST use of the term"). Being string based means that automated searches can be done against content to identify terms that should be trademarked (in essence, document management systems can take over maintenance of tm markup within topics).

However, some trademarks have logoized forms that are typically represented as graphics in the document content (which may not be the ideal way to indicate them). Such forms of trademarks are not able to be processed by the usual string-aware processing tools.

Should the processing support graphics as trademarks? Should there be an alternate way to indicate a tm superscript in association with a logoized term?

As a possible solution using unchanged <tm> content rules, could we recommend making use of the "Unicode private area" mechanism for company-specific glyphs? The text of the trademarked term would still be string, and therefore accessible to string-aware processors. But this is moving the representation into fonts rather than grapics, and it would be inconvenient if popular fonts had to be updated to support custom glyphs.

Given the impetus to wrap up issues affecting DITA 1.0 specification, the ultimate question at this point is whether to designate this as a post 1.0 issue.

Regards,
--
Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
IBM Lead DITA Architect
11501 Burnet Rd., MS 9037D018, Austin TX 78758
Ph. 512-838-8550 (T/L 678-8550)

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