ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Ricardo Salveti de Araujo <ricardo.salveti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/18/2013 07:31 PM, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Alex Chiang <achiang@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > * Benjamin Kerensa <bkerensa@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> > > We currently are using Trademark brands of Twitter, YouTube and
> > > Facebook (and others on Ubuntu.com mobile area) all outside of the
> > > scope of each individual services Trademark policy...
> >
> > Can you point out where you believe the violation is occurring? I
> > looked around http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone for about 10
> > minutes and didn't see anything standing out.
>
> Did you not notice the Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Skype, SoundCloud,
> Youtube and Spotify logos (Trademarked Brands) being used? If you read
> the policies of these brands they have very clearly outlined that use
> on a website or in apps to give a sense of endorsement by those brands
> or in some cases at all is not allowed.
>
> Its like slapping to Ubuntu logo on Microsoft.com... Its just not
> allowed by the trademark policy because Ubuntu/Canonical does not give
> permission to Microsoft to do such because we do not endorse that
> company.
>
>
>
> > Unless you're talking about something else?
> >
> > Rest of my comments follow on the assumption you're talking about
> > the web site, and not something else. If it is something else,
> > then apologies in advance for not understanding your meaning.
>
> But this also applies to the phone apps which ship again Trademarked
> logos/brand names:
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-twitter-dev/ubuntu-twitter-app/trunk/view/head:/twitter64.png
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-facebook-dev/ubuntu-facebook-app/trunk/view/head:/facebook64.png
>
> We cannot use logos or brand names in violation of the trademark
> policies of the respective brands.
>
> > > Don't use Twitter in the name of your website, application or product.
> > > - Twitter Trademark Policy
> > >
> > > https://twitter.com/logo
> >
> > We have a twitter logo here:
> >          http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone
> >
> > But the section you quoted does not apply in this scenario, since
> > it is talking about "naming applications, products, or domains";
> > simply using the icon is completely fine.
>
> Actually not correct... I know for example that Twitter in the case of
> FxOS licensed their trademark because Twitter does not want third
> platforms making use of their logo or brand in applications.
>
> You cannot just create a application on a third-party platform and
> call it "Twitter" and expect that to be accepted use... Its
> common-sense and basic trademark etiquette.

One thing is that we're not creating an application here, it's just a 
browser opening a link.

So, I'd follow Alex's line here, that using just the logo without 
modifying the app/user experience is actually fine.

But for an official statement we'd need a lawyer here.

Cheers,
--
Ricardo Salveti de Araujo