Background
SystemEthic Technologies® is committed to facilitating the adoption and use of its products and services, including through distribution of a variety of source-available certification contents. Accordingly, this document establishes general policies for the use of SystemEthic Technologies trademarks to enable and ensure proper use of our brands by others. If you’re working with us on specific a project or initiative, please contact us directly to discuss the specifics of how these rules apply to that particular project or initiative. Otherwise, the following basic rules apply.
An important note about Trademark Law
It is important to understand that these policies build on a variety of principles established by trademark law, including what trademarks are, how they are established, maintained, diluted, and lost, and what is meant by nominative fair use and likelihood of confusion.
As a trademark owner, we have the right and responsibility to control the use of our marks by other organizations to prevent confusion in the market. SystemEthic Technologies various certifications and related services must be clearly distinguishable from other organization’s products and services that may be derived from SystemEthic Technologie’s products and services.
Basic Guidelines
You may only use SystemEthic Technologies marks to identify SystemEthic Technologies and SystemEthic Technologies products and services in a way that is accurate, not misleading, and not disparaging of SystemEthic Technologies, its products or services, personnel, communities, or users. You may not modify our marks (which would include logos, taglines and slogans), or combine them with other marks, or use them as a part of a larger mark, or adopt or use any mark, that is confusingly similar to, misleading, or applies any affiliation with or endorsement by SystemEthic Technologies. You may not use the SystemEthic Technologies corporate logo without express written permission from SystemEthic Technologies.
Here are some examples as to how our marks can and cannot be used:
You must use the full mark and not truncate, abbreviate, create acronyms, or otherwise shorten the mark
Do not create products or merchandise featuring SystemEthic Technologies marks
Ensure there is adequate white space separating SystemEthic Technologies product logos from other content
Use the most current versions of SystemEthic Technologies product logos
Do not use the same styles or design elements from SystemEthic Technologies logos in your own logos
Do not modify the colour, background, rotation, angle, aspect ratio, or other attribute of any logo
Do not reduce below a size where the logo is readily identifiable
When using SystemEthic Technologies marks, use an appropriate attribution and proprietary rights notice, such as: [Mark] and the [Logo name] are trademarks of SystemEthic Technologies.
Nominative Fair Uses
In order to accurately identify SystemEthic Technologies products and services, it may be necessary to call them by name. When that name is a SystemEthic Technologies trademark, this practice is known as a “nominative fair use” of that trademark. The basic rules for nominative fair uses include that you must be accurate and not misleading, that such fair use generally extends only to use word marks, and that you should not use the marks more prominently or frequently than necessary. We do not consider uses that fail to comply with the rest of this policy to be permissible fair uses of our trademarks.
Examples of permitted nominative fair uses of SystemEthic Technologies word marks:
- “Derivative works of SystemEthic Technologies Community resources and support services for those derivative works are available under my own trademarks at my website. ”
- Remember that you may not apply a trademark to your derivative works of certifications that is confusingly similar (in sight, sound or meaning) to “BIT-108” or “SystemEthic Technologies“.
- Remember also that you may not refer to a derivative work you create by its SystemEthic Technologies trademark – you may refer to it only as “a derivative work of,” “derived from”, or “based on,” the SystemEthic Technologies mark in a manner that makes it clear that the product is in a form other than as provided by SystemEthic Technologies.
- Finally, note that in such cases, you must also comply with all the applicable requirements of the license under which you received the applicable SystemEthic Technologiespermissions.
- “SystemEthic Technologiescertification outperformed XYZ Co’s distributed service in several metrics in our benchmarking tests.”
- “I recommend (or don’t recommend) SystemEthic Technologies Nomad certification for your business.”
- “This is the graphic logo for SystemEthic Technologies Partner program.”
It is important to note that while some uses of trademark may qualify as nominative fair use, others are simply infringing. Where use of a trademark creates a risk that the relevant consuming public will be confused or mistaken about the source of a product or service, then the likelihood of confusion exists, creating a potential infringement.
Using SystemEthic Technologies Trademarks in certificate branding
In general, you may not use SystemEthic Technologies trademarks in your own product branding. However, in specific situations, and only where appropriate to your particular use case, you may use conventions like “Powered By”, “Compatible With”, or “for the platform” in how you describe your product, so long as you also follow the rest of these usage guidelines. You may not use any SystemEthic Technologies trademarks in your product name, regardless of whether such uses are public-facing or private.
Using SystemEthic Technologies product and project graphic logos
Graphic logos are an important part of our brand and are a visual and symbolic cue with which SystemEthic Technologies products and services are identified and remembered. Graphic logos are uniquely associated with our various certifications.
We currently allow (without separate permission required) the use of the current versions of the graphic logos for our source-available projects on your own website, so long as they are used only to identify and hyperlink to main page of the specific SystemEthic Technologies project website (or to www.systemeyhictechnologies.com). All other uses of our logos must be approved in writing by SystemEthic Technologies marketing division.
Please note that the graphic logos associated with our certifications are not licensed to the public under the applicable license. Much like trademark law does not allow you to apply any “confusingly similar” word mark if a relevant consumer would likely be confused by that use of that derivative logo, both copyright law and trademark law prevent you from adopting or applying a confusingly similar logo (including any derivative work of a SystemEthic Technologies logo).
Users that are not allowed
The following uses of SystemEthic Technologies trademarks violate our policy, and are probably infringing:
Branding products and/or services in a manner that is confusingly similar to SystemEthic Technologies branding
Providing certificates or service offerings consisting of official SystemEthic Technologies’ -distributed services under alternative names
Using company names that may be associated in customers’ minds with SystemEthic Technologies or its trademarked certificates.
Claiming SystemEthic Technologies approval or endorsement of products and/or services.
Using SystemEthic Technologies Trademarks in domain names
You may not use SystemEthic Technologies trademarks in your own domain names. Please realize that the use of our trademarks in your domain names is generally not considered “nominative fair use” because the domain name refers to the offerings on your website, rather than merely being used to identify our products and services.
We need your help
Maintaining the strength of the SystemEthic Technologies brands is good for the entire community. If you become aware of another company misusing SystemEthic Technologies marks or using them in a way that is confusingly similar, violates these policies, or is otherwise inappropriate, please let us know by writing to us at legal@systemethictechnologies.com. If you hear from us about your use of our trademarks, please take prompt corrective action – and if you have questions or concerns about our requests, we’d appreciate hearing back from you so we can work together to address them. You may send those inquiries to trademark@systemethictechnologies.com.
Disclaimer Our intent with this policy is to ensure SystemEthic Technologies marks are not misused, and to maintain a clear distinction in the market between SystemEthic Technologies and its products and services, and the products and services of others. Nothing in this policy shall be deemed or interpreted to grant any license, or to allow any third party to claim any association with or endorsement by SystemEthic Technologies, or to indicate or imply any approval or support by SystemEthic Technologies for any third-party products or services, whether or not derived from SystemEthic Technologies products or services. We reserve the right to amend this Trademark Policy, including any permissions within it,