In the world of commerce, the ® registered trademark symbol (known as the “Circle R”) conveys a very important meaning. The registered trademark symbol signifies that a trademark or service mark has been federally registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It’s regularly used by owners of registered trademarks to put the world on actual notice of their federal trademark rights and to deter others who may be considering adopting an identical or confusingly similar mark.
As a side note, just because you see the registered trademark symbol next to a trademark, don’t assume that the mark is actually federally registered. It’s very possible that the registration may have been cancelled, the mark was never registered to begin with, or the mark is merely the subject of a pending trademark application that has not yet matured into a registration. So, if you ever want to know for sure whether a particular trademark is registered, you’ll have to conduct a federal trademark search.
