OpenAirInterfaceTM (OAI) Software Alliance Trademark Usage Guidelines

This is a statement of the OAI’s policy and guidelines relating to use of trademarks owned by the Alliance.  Your use of any Alliance trademark must be in accordance with this policy.

OAI “trademarks” include:

OpenAirInterface

For purposes of this policy, references to trademarks or marks include all trade and service marks and logos owned by the OpenAirInterfaceTM(OAI) Software Alliance.

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 the Alliance to ensure that its trademarks remain reliable indicators of the qualities that they have been created to preserve and 2) the need of the Alliance to ensure that community members are able to discuss the projects and workgroups with which the Alliance is associated and to accurately describe the relationship between the Alliance 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 a Alliance 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 workgroup or 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 or workgroup developing the licensed software or other materials.  Because open source licenses permit unrestricted modification of the copyrighted software, and the Alliance has no intention of interfering with that right, your right to use the Alliance 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 other requirements that are directly related to the qualities that the specific mark has been created to preserve.  These are the requirements that are included with the trademark notice in a statement of permitted use displayed on the website dedicated to the workgroup or project.

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

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 Alliance 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 Alliance 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 a Alliance 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 the Alliance 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 the OAI workgroup or project websites.

Rules and Policies Applicable to Marks Owned by the OpenAirInterfaceTM (OAI) Software Alliance

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

  • Use “OpenAirInterface (OAI) Software Alliance” in the first reference to the organization in all documents of mass communication, including marketing collateral and web pages.  Use “OAI” only where there is another clear reference to “OpenAirInterface Software Alliance” on the document.
  • Use Alliance 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 Alliance trademarks in a manner that would disparage the Alliance or its workgroups (e.g., untruthful advertising, false/misleading promotional materials, etc.).
  • Do not use Alliance trademarks more prominently than your own company, product or service name.
  • Do not use a Alliance logo on the cover of a book or magazine without written permission from Alliance.
  • Do not use a Alliance logo on posters, brochures, signs, websites, or other marketing materials to promote your events, products or services without written permission from Alliance.
  • Do not refer to a product or service as being certified under any of the Alliance’s marks unless your company has successfully undergone the requisite compliance testing suites and has explicit authorization to use such terms by the Alliance.
  • Do not attempt to claim or assert any ownership rights in any Alliance mark and do not attempt to register any Alliance trademark as a trademark, trade name, domain name, or “doing business as” name, alone or in combination with your own trademarks.

The Alliance marks have been created and their use is expressly permitted for a specific purpose.  Do not use Alliance 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 the Alliance to do so.  The Alliance permits the use of its marks for private and personal use to make t-shirts, wallpapers, 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 a Alliance mark or logo as a link to the home page of the applicable workgroup or to a web page on the Alliance 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.  The link and all other usage of a Alliance logo shall be done using the official versions of the Alliance logos obtained from the links provided above.

With respect to the use of Alliance trademarks in a publication, you may use a Alliance mark on the cover and/or title of a publication provided that you do not use the mark in a manner that suggests that the Alliance 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 the OpenAirInterface (OAI) Software Alliance.”

Certain Alliance marks have been created to enable you to communicate compatibility or interoperability of software or products.  In addition to the requirement that any use of a mark to make an assertion of compatibility must, of course, be accurate, the use of these marks must avoid confusion regarding the Alliance’s association with the product.  The use of the mark cannot imply that the Alliance is sponsoring or endorsing the product.  The following are examples of proper and improper usage of these Alliance trademarks:

Correct: <your product name> for <Alliance mark>

Correct: <your product name> plug-in for <Alliance mark>

Correct: <your product name> compatible with <Alliance mark>

Correct: <your product name> for use with <Alliance mark>

Incorrect: <Alliance  mark> <your product name>

Incorrect: <Alliance mark>-<your product name>

Questions, Comments, Concerns

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

Disclaimer

The Alliance 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.  The Alliance does not warrant that any pending trademark applications for Alliance trademarks will result in any granted trademark protection.  The Alliance 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 the Alliance and its contributors harmless against any such claims.

Updates

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

This work is inspired by the Mozilla Foundation Trademark Policy and the GNOME Trademark Licensing. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.