Capitalise commercial and proprietary names. A brand name or trademark can also be applied using the superscript symbols ® or ™ (e.g. Kleenex®, Xerox™). The ® symbol may only be used with a current registered trademark. The ™ symbol can be used alongside a brand name at any time, whether or not it is registered.
These symbols are usually not necessary in running text, provided that a capital letter is used for the brand name. But they should be used when introducing a new product, in definitions or other explanatory notes, or if it seems appropriate for the specific context.
As successful products become widely used, they tend to lose the capitals from their brand names. The brand name may become the generic term for the item, or it can be used as a verb:
Caterpillar tractor caterpillar wheels
Whipper Snipper she whipper-snippered around the garden
Hoover vacuum cleaner he hoovered the bedrooms
Check the dictionary to determine whether a term has become sufficiently commonplace to drop its capital or be used as a verb.
For names of medicines, capitalise proprietary names but not their generic derivatives:
Panadol [proprietary name] but paracetamol [active ingredient]
Nurofen [proprietary name] but ibuprofen [active ingredient]
For further details on the use of capital letters in medicine names, see Medicine names.
Similarly, for pesticide names, capitalise the proprietary name but not the chemical name of the active ingredient:
Roundup [proprietary name] but glyphosate [active ingredient]
Mortein [proprietary name] but allethrin [active ingredient]
For brand names that usually start with a lower-case letter (e.g. eBay, iPhone), capitalise at the start of a sentence, or rewrite the sentence so that the shortened form does not appear at the beginning:
EBay is a sales platform for both personal and commercial sales.
or
Both personal and commercial sales can be made through eBay.
not
eBay is a sales platform for both personal and commercial sales.