Service Mark (SM) Trouble

By Bonica Brown

I had been working on sending out an HTML Email blast for a client. In this Eblast they needed to have their name followed by a service mark(℠). This is when the trouble started.

A service mark (SM) is a superscripted symbol used in the U.S. to show that the preceding name is a trademark for a service. The ® symbol replaces the service mark once it has been federally registered with the U.S Patent office.

With some Googling I found the Unicode for the (SM) – U+2120.  Looking further I found the HTML code for (SM) is – & #8480;. That looked simple enough, and I put the code into the Eblast. However, after testing, I soon discovered that not all systems are able to recognize the HTML element for (SM).

One of the reasons for this is that every computer is installed with a variety of fonts, and although most are universal, not all of those fonts carry the (SM) symbol. (Most contain ® and ™ but (SM) is not as common.) Another problem is that every Internet browser reads HTML coding a little differently.

With more Googling I found other designers had this issue. Some tried to use CSS styles to make the font smaller and superscript it. They had issues with the (SM) being too pixilated. Or when they tried to open it in other browsers such as IE they got (SM)’s that would superscript it into a tiny font that aligned to the middle of their normal text!

In the end I discovered that it was nearly impossible to have a HTML superscripted (SM) symbol show up for everybody who received the Eblast. I converted the (SM) to an image, thus solving the problem of it not showing up (unless of course they don’t have the option to view images on the email).