Service Mark

Service Mark at U+2120 is a compact legal-style symbol meaning that a name, slogan, or logo is being claimed as a service mark rather than a trademark for goods. It sits in the Letterlike Symbols block and is usually shown as small raised letters “SM” in a single character. Its main use is in branding and marketing copy for services: banks, software-as-a-service products, consulting firms, telecom plans, hospitality brands, and event names may place it after a brand name to signal an unregistered or claimed service mark, as in AcmeCare℠. In United States trademark practice, it is the service counterpart to the trademark sign, used before or without federal registration; registered marks instead commonly use the registered sign. Outside legal and brand materials, it appears in style guides, trademark databases, package copy, website footers, advertisements, and product pages that distinguish services from physical goods. Many publishers simply use plain superscript “SM” instead, so this single-character form is useful when the mark needs to stay together as one text character, but it can be confused visually with two styled Latin letters in small type.