In this note we show that there exist a semiprime ring R, a strictly ordered artinian, narrow, unique product monoid (S,≤) and a monoid homomorphism ω:S⟶End(R) such that the skew generalized power series ring R[[S,ω]] is semicommutative but R[[S,ω]] is not reversible. This answers a question posed in Marks et al. [‘A unified approach to various generalizations of Armendariz rings’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.81 (2010), 361–397].

Let R be a ring, S a strictly ordered monoid, and ω:S→End(R) a monoid homomorphism. The skew generalized power series ring R[[S,ω]] is a common generalization of (skew) polynomial rings, (skew) power series rings, (skew) Laurent polynomial rings, (skew) group rings, and Mal’cev–Neumann Laurent series rings. We study the (S,ω)-Armendariz condition on R, a generalization of the standard Armendariz condition from polynomials to skew generalized power series. We resolve the structure of (S,ω)-Armendariz rings and obtain various necessary or sufficient conditions for a ring to be (S,ω)-Armendariz, unifying and generalizing a number of known Armendariz-like conditions in the aforementioned special cases. As particular cases of our general results we obtain several new theorems on the Armendariz condition; for example, left uniserial rings are Armendariz. We also characterize when a skew generalized power series ring is reduced or semicommutative, and we obtain partial characterizations for it to be reversible or 2-primal.