ASCII 169
Copyright signReversed not sign
ASCII 169 is © on Windows and ⌐ in old DOS.
© (Copyright Sign) is byte 169 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00A9. It's the c in a circle from website footers and book imprints: © 2026 Example Ltd. In the US and other Berne Convention countries a work is protected without it, so the sign states a claim rather than creating one. On websites the bug to watch is the year. A hard-coded © 2019 goes stale without anyone noticing, so generate it with new Date().getFullYear() or your template's equivalent. Word adds a problem of its own: AutoCorrect turns (c) into ©, which wrecks lists labeled (a), (b), (c). If a footer shows ©, the page's UTF-8 bytes C2 A9 were read as Windows-1252, and the  is the misread C2. The sound recording sign ℗ (U+2117) is a separate symbol that Windows-1252 doesn't have. The HTML entity is ©.
⌐ (Reversed Not Sign) is byte 169 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+2310. It's the mirror image of the not sign ¬ at 170, and Windows-1252 has no equivalent. It shows up as garbage in one familiar place: é is C3 A9 in UTF-8, and a code page 437 console draws A9 as ⌐, so café prints as caf├⌐. Code page 850 put ® on this byte instead, so a DOS file from 850 that says Brand® reads as Brand⌐ in 437. In UTF-8 the reversed not sign takes three bytes, E2 8C 90, and the HTML entity is ⌐.
Technical Details
Technical Details
Code Example
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#include <stdio.h>int main(void) {/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 169 is ©.Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */printf("\u00A9\n"); /* UTF-8: C2 A9 */unsigned char b = 169; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 169 0xA9 */return 0;}
Code Example
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#include <stdio.h>int main(void) {/* Byte 169 is ⌐ only on a console using code page 437(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal thelone byte 0xA9 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */putchar(169);/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xA9 is -87.Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */char c = (char)169;unsigned char u = 169;printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -87 169 *//* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */printf("\u2310\n"); /* E2 8C 90 */return 0;}
How to Type It
- Windows
- Hold Alt and type 0169 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00A9 and press Alt+X.
- Mac
- Press Option+G.
- Linux
- In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type a9, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, o, c.
- Phone
- iPhone: tap the character at the top of this page to copy it. Android (Gboard): tap ?123, then =\< and tap ©.
How to Type It
- Windows
- Hold Alt and type 169 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. US PCs insert ⌐, but PCs set to code page 850, common in Western Europe, insert ®. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 2310 and press Alt+X.
- Mac
- Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "reversed not sign".
- Linux
- In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 2310, then Space.
- Phone
- Phone keyboards have no key for it. Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.
Frequently Asked Questions
® if the name is registered as a trademark, otherwise ™. Copyright doesn't cover names or short slogans, so © on a brand name claims nothing. Using ® (byte 174) on an unregistered mark isn't allowed in the US and many other countries, while ™ (byte 153) needs no registration. Keep © for the creative work itself, like your site's text or photos.
No. The phrase was a requirement of the Buenos Aires Convention, and every country that signed it has since joined the Berne Convention, so the requirement is gone. © 2026 Studio Name already says everything a notice can. Keeping All rights reserved does no harm, but it adds no protection either.
The year the work was first published, since that's what a copyright notice is meant to state. A book printed in 2021 keeps © 2021 in an unchanged reprint. For a website that keeps getting new pages, a range from launch to the latest year, like © 2019–2026, covers the old pages and the new ones.
Not reliably. US law lists the symbol ©, the word Copyright and the abbreviation Copr. as notice forms, and (c) in parentheses isn't one of them. Where you can't use ©, as in a plain ASCII source file header, write the word out instead: Copyright 2026 Studio Name is a complete notice under US law.
Add a zero: Alt+0169 gives ©. Without the zero, Windows looks 169 up in your DOS code page, where it was never the copyright sign. A US setup (code page 437) shows ⌐, and most Western European setups (850) show ®, which looks like you just hit the wrong key. Code page 850 does have ©, but at Alt+184.
Your program or batch file writes © as the Windows-1252 byte 169, and the console decodes that byte with its DOS code page, which has ⌐ there. Make the two agree: put `chcp 1252` at the top of a batch file saved as ANSI, or save it as UTF-8 and start with `chcp 65001`.
Frequently Asked Questions
Add a zero: Alt+0169 gives ©. Without the zero, Windows looks 169 up in your DOS code page, where it was never the copyright sign. A US setup (code page 437) shows ⌐, and most Western European setups (850) show ®, which looks like you just hit the wrong key. Code page 850 does have ©, but at Alt+184.
Your program or batch file writes © as the Windows-1252 byte 169, and the console decodes that byte with its DOS code page, which has ⌐ there. Make the two agree: put `chcp 1252` at the top of a batch file saved as ANSI, or save it as UTF-8 and start with `chcp 65001`.