Home / Symbols / Copyright & Legal Symbols © Copyright & Legal Symbols, Copy & Paste Copyright and legal symbols mark ownership, registration and formal structure in text. The core three are © (copyright), ® (registered trademark) and ™ (unregistered trademark), joined by ℠ (service mark) and ℗ (sound-recording copyright, the "phonogram" symbol). Alongside them sit the section sign § and pilcrow ¶ used in legal and academic citation, the degree-based ℃ and ℉, the numero sign № and the estimated sign ℮ found on European packaging. These live mostly in Unicode's Latin-1 Supplement and Letterlike Symbols blocks. People paste them into website footers, product names, app store listings, contracts, academic papers citing statutes (§ 12), and YouTube or Etsy descriptions to assert rights. The trademark trio is by far the most copied, since keyboards rarely have a dedicated key for ©, ® or ™.
Copyright & Legal Symbols to Copy © ® ™ ℠ ℗ § ¶ ℃ ℉ № ℮ ℀ ℁ ℅ ℆ ⁅ ⁆ ⚖ 🔒 🔓 🔏 🔐 📋 📜 📝 🖊 ✒ 🖋 ⚜
What each legal mark actually means These aren't interchangeable. © asserts copyright over creative work like text, art or code. ® may legally only be used with a trademark that's officially registered, while ™ marks an unregistered trademark claim and ℠ does the same for a service. ℗ specifically covers sound recordings. The section sign § references a numbered clause in law or contracts, and the pilcrow ¶ marks a paragraph in legal and editorial contexts. № is shorthand for "number," and ℮ is the EU "estimated" sign guaranteeing average fill quantity. Using ® on an unregistered mark can be legally risky in some jurisdictions, so ™ is the safer default until registration completes.
Where these symbols belong Website footers almost always carry © with a year and company name. Product and brand names in app stores, packaging and marketing use ™ or ® right after the name. Musicians and labels add ℗ to release credits. Lawyers and students citing legislation write § and reference paragraphs with ¶, and academic style guides use both. Recipe and science writers paste ℃ and ℉ for temperatures, catalogues use № before item numbers, and European labels show ℮ next to net weight. Because they're single characters, they drop cleanly into contracts, PDFs, spreadsheets and any plain-text field without needing special formatting.
Frequently Asked Questions What's the difference between ™ and ®, and can I use either freely? ▼ ™ signals an unregistered trademark claim and anyone can use it on their brand name. ® is legally reserved for trademarks officially registered with the relevant authority, and using it on an unregistered mark can carry legal penalties in some countries. When in doubt, use ™ until your registration is granted, then switch to ®.
Why does the trademark symbol sometimes appear raised and small? ▼ ™, ® and © are designed as superscript-style marks, so many fonts render them slightly raised and reduced, which is correct. Their exact size varies by font. They're among the most universally supported Unicode characters, so they display reliably in virtually every browser, document editor and social platform.
When should I use the section sign § versus the pilcrow ¶? ▼ Use § to cite a specific numbered section of a law, contract or regulation, for example "§ 4.2." Use ¶ to refer to a particular paragraph, common in legal briefs and editorial marks. Both are standard in academic and legal writing and paste cleanly into documents, footnotes and citations.
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