Commercial code

Commercial code might refer to:

Commercial code (law)

In law, a commercial code is a codification of private law relating to merchants, trade, business entities (especially companies), commercial contracts and other matters such as negotiable instruments. Many civil law legal systems have codifications of commercial law.

See also

Commercial code (communications)

In telecommunication, a commercial code is a code once used to save on cablegram costs.Telegraph (and telex) charged per word sent, so companies which sent large volumes of telegrams developed codes to save money on tolls. Elaborate commercial codes which encoded complete phrases into single words were developed and published as codebooks of thousands of phrases and sentences with corresponding codewords. Commercial codes were not generally intended to keep telegrams private, as codes were widely published; they were usually cost-saving measures only.

Many general-purpose codes, such as the Acme Code and the ABC Code, were published and widely used between the 1870s and the 1950s, before the arrival of transatlantic telephone calls and next-day airmail rendered them obsolete. Numerous special-purpose codes were also developed and sold for fields as varied as aviation, car dealerships, insurance, and cinema, containing words and phrases commonly used in those professions.