diff --git a/src/gui/text/qabstracttextdocumentlayout.cpp b/src/gui/text/qabstracttextdocumentlayout.cpp
index 9c523f15e1..f83539543a 100644
--- a/src/gui/text/qabstracttextdocumentlayout.cpp
+++ b/src/gui/text/qabstracttextdocumentlayout.cpp
@@ -419,6 +419,8 @@ QAbstractTextDocumentLayout::~QAbstractTextDocumentLayout()
     \note registerHandler() has to be called once for each object type. This
     means that there is only one handler for multiple replacement characters
     of the same object type.
+
+    The text document layout does not take ownership of \c component.
 */
 void QAbstractTextDocumentLayout::registerHandler(int formatType, QObject *component)
 {