Apparently it is, 'cause I can't use it at any point inside a ship or character name. It works fine on notepad and elsewhere, could be a mod bug I suppose, let me check single player as well.
Name I'm trying to enter: Michael.Barnes
Haven't gotten to chat yet; this is a character creation thing.
in the 'control' menu there is a command linked to the button 'L'
disable that one or change into something else, then your prob should be fixed, chatting ingame is no problem,
I had the same problem, and I changed it into numpad 0,
hope this helps