Trademarks - AllSeen Alliance

AllSeen Alliance, Inc. Trademark Usage Guidelines

This is a statement of the policy and guidelines of AllSeen Alliance, Inc. (“AllSeen”) relating to use of trademarks owned by AllSeen. Your use of any AllSeen trademark must be in accordance with this policy.

AllSeen “trademarks” include:

AllSeen, AllSeen Alliance, the AllSeen Alliance logo, AllJoyn, the AllJoyn logo and the Designed for AllSeen logo.

For purposes of this policy, references to trademarks or marks include all trade and service marks and logos owned by AllSeen.

Trademarks are used to provide assurance to the community of consistency with respect to the quality of products or services with which the mark is associated. This policy attempts to strike the proper balance between two competing interests: 1) the need of AllSeen to ensure that its trademarks remain reliable indicators of the qualities that they have been created to preserve and 2) the need of AllSeen to ensure that community members are able to discuss the projects with which AllSeen is associated and to accurately describe the relationship between AllSeen and the products and services offered by others.

A trademark provides the owner with an exclusive right to authorize or control the use of the mark. Your right to use an AllSeen mark is provided for in this policy and in the statement of permitted use that accompanies the trademark notice displayed on the website dedicated to the project. A copyright license, even an open source copyright license, does not include an implied right or license to use a trademark that may be related to the project developing the licensed software or other materials. Because open source licenses permit unrestricted modification of the copyrighted software, and AllSeen has no intention of interfering with that right, your right to use the AllSeen trademarks is not determined by your use of software made available under an open source license. Your right to use a mark is conditioned upon conforming to this policy and other requirements that are directly related to the qualities that the specific mark has been created to preserve. Where this policy requires you to get AllSeen’s approval, you may email your request to trademark@allseenalliance.org.

Proper use of AllSeen trademarks by following these trademark usage guidelines protects the value of AllSeen trademarks. Any use of or reference to AllSeen trademarks that is inconsistent with this AllSeen trademark policy, or use of marks that are confusingly similar to AllSeen trademarks, is prohibited. All uses of the AllSeen trademarks, and all goodwill associated therewith, will inure solely to the benefit of AllSeen.

Rules that Apply to Trademarks In General

There are some basic rules that apply to any use of any trade or service mark that you do not own, including any AllSeen mark, without the express permission of the owner.

A trademark should never be used as a verb or noun. A trademark should be used only as an adjective followed by the generic name/noun.
A trademark should not be used in the plural or possessive form.
A trademark should not be altered or amended in any way. A mark should not be combined with any other mark, hyphenated, abbreviated or displayed in parts. A trademark that is depicted as two or more words should not be compressed into one word. A logo should not be displayed with color variations, or with other elements superimposed on top of the logo.
A trademark should not be used as your domain name or as part of your domain name.
A trademark should not be used as part of your product name.
A trademark should not be incorporated into your company’s logos or designs.
A trademark notice should be used on the most prominent and/or first appearance of each AllSeen mark, and a trademark notice should not be changed. In particular, a ™ should not be changed to an ^® in a trademark notice by anyone other than the owner. If you are unsure about whether an AllSeen mark is registered in your country, please contact us for additional guidance as to what trademark symbol you should use.

There are also some basic rights that everyone has to use any trademark, which are often referred to as “fair use,” and AllSeen does not intend to restrict those rights. You may make fair use of word marks to make true factual statements. But fair use does not permit you to state or imply that the owner of a mark produces, endorses, or supports your company, products, or services. Even when making fair use of a trademark, you should acknowledge the owner of the trademark with a trademark notice, such as the notice displayed on AllSeen project websites.

Rules and Policies Applicable to Marks Owned by AllSeen

In addition to the generally applicable rules discussed above, there are a few specific rules that we ask everyone to follow when using AllSeen-owned trademarks.

Use AllSeen trademarks in a form that distinguishes them from the text around them, such as by capitalization, bold or italic fonts, or with quotation marks.
Do not use AllSeen trademarks in a manner that would disparage AllSeen (e.g., untruthful advertising, false/misleading promotional materials, etc.).
Do not use AllSeen trademarks more prominently than your own company, product or service name.
Do not use an AllSeen logo on the cover of a book or magazine without written permission from AllSeen.
Do not use an AllSeen logo on posters, brochures, signs, websites, or other marketing materials to promote your events, products or services without written permission from AllSeen.
Do not refer to a product or service as being certified under any of AllSeen’s marks unless your company has successfully undergone the requisite compliance testing suites and has explicit authorization to use such terms by AllSeen.
Do not attempt to claim or assert any ownership rights in any AllSeen mark and do not attempt to register any AllSeen trademark as a trademark, trade name, domain name, or “doing business as” name, alone or in combination with your own trademarks.

The AllSeen marks have been created and their use is expressly permitted for a specific purpose. Do not use AllSeen logos or names in any commercial or marketing context other than as expressly permitted in this policy unless you have obtained explicit written permission from AllSeen to do so. AllSeen permits the use of its marks for private and personal use to make t-shirts, wallpapers, or caps for yourself and your friends (meaning people from whom you don’t receive anything of value in return) in a manner that is consistent with the preservation of the goodwill and value of the mark.

You are also allowed to use an AllSeen word mark as a link to a web page on the AllSeen web site that is relevant to the reference, again, if the link is in a manner that is consistent with the preservation of the goodwill and value of the mark. You may only use an AllSeen logo as a link to a web page if you have obtained written permission from AllSeen. The link and all other usage of an AllSeen logo shall be done using the official versions of the AllSeen logos obtained from the links specifically provided by the Alliance.

With respect to the use of AllSeen trademarks in a publication, you may use an AllSeen mark on the cover and/or title of a publication provided that you do not use the mark in a manner that suggests that AllSeen is affiliated with or is sponsoring or endorsing the publication and that you include an appropriate disclaimer on the publication and on all related printed materials, such as: “(Title) is an independent (publication) and is not affiliated with, authorized by, sponsored by, or otherwise approved by AllSeen Alliance, Inc.”

Questions, Comments, Concerns

We look to our community to help us retain the value of AllSeen’s marks. If you have questions with respect to these guidelines or to report concerns regarding the use or misuse of an AllSeen trademark, or to obtain written permission for a proposed use of the AllSeen trademarks, contact: trademark@allseenalliance.org.

Disclaimer

AllSeen does not make any express or implied warranties, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of any third party intellectual property rights. AllSeen does not warrant that any pending trademark applications for AllSeen trademarks will result in any granted trademark protection. AllSeen shall not be liable for any claims relating to user’s activities falling within the scope of the permission and user hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold AllSeen and its contributors harmless against any such claims.

Updates

AllSeen may release new versions of this AllSeen trademark policy or statements of permitted use of AllSeen marks from time to time without notice.

This work is inspired by the Mozilla Foundation Trademark Policy and the GNOME Trademark Licensing. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.