Trademark Policy
Updated May 10, 2024.
LF Projects, LLC (“LF Projects”) is a Delaware series limited liability company that hosts projects that have been established as series of LF Projects (each such project, a “Project”).
This trademark policy governs the use of trademarks owned by LF Projects and used by the Projects under license. Some trademarks of LF Projects, such as trademarks that are part of a compliance or conformance program, have additional requirements (such trademarks, “Compliance Marks”). Compliance Marks may only be used pursuant to the applicable requirements published by LF Projects for each such Compliance Mark.
For purposes of this document, references to trademarks or marks include all trade and service marks and logos owned by LF Projects.
Trademarks of LF Projects
LF Projects has the following registered trademarks:
- ACRN®
- Acumos®
- Akraino®
- Angel®
- Covid Shield®
- Horovod®
- KiCad®
- Mapzen®
- Milvus®
- ONNX®
- Presto®
- Pyro®
- seL4®
- Servo®
- StackStorm®
- TARS®
- TSeer®
- Tungsten Fabric®
LF Projects has registrations pending or trademarks in use for the following marks, including designs:
- Accord Project™
- Anuket™
- Baetyl™
- BlockHound™
- CashCache™
- Chips Alliance™
- ClusterDuck™
- COCONUT-SVSM™
- Data Practices Community™
- DecoderRing™
- DENT™
- Delta Lake™
- DPDK™
- DPEL™
- EdgeX Foundry™
- EDL™
- eKuiper™
- ELISA™
- Enarx™
- Enterprise Cyber-Physical Edge Virtualization Engine™
- FinOps Certified™
- FinOps Foundation™
- FinOps Framework™
- FinOps X™
- Fledge™
- GraphQL™
- GXF™
- Home Edge™
- Interuss Platform™
- KernelCI™
- Laminas™
- LF Projects™
- LinuxBoot™
- LVFS™
- Magma™
- Magma Core™
- Marquez™
- MATERIALX™
- MLflow™
- NexoEdge™
- NextArch Foundation™
- Newticity™
- NNStreamer™
- Open Enclave™
- Open Energy Data Initiative™
- Open Glossary for Edge Computing™
- Open Horizon™
-
Open Review Initiative™
-
open shading language™
-
OpenAPV™
- OpenAssetIO™
- OpenBMC™
- OpenColorIO™
- OpenCue™
- OpenEEW™
- OpenEXR™
- OpenFX™
- OpenImageIO™
- OpenMessaging™
- OpenPubkey™
- OpenTimelineIO™
- OpenTofu™
- OpenVDB™
- OperatorFabric™
- ORT™
- OSQuery™
- OSS Review Toolkit™
- PowSyBl™
- Project EVE™
- rawtoaces™
- Red Team™
- rez™
- RIAPS™
- Sound Open Firmware™
- Sparklyr™
- State of the Edge™
- Streaming Networks Analytics System™
- Urban Computing Foundation™
- Valkey™
- XGVela™
- Zowe Binary™
Logo Marks: In addition, LF Projects has visual logo trademarks in use and you must comply with any visual guidelines or additional requirements.
Trademark Usage Guidelines of LF Projects
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 LF Projects to ensure that its trademarks remain reliable indicators of the qualities that they have been created to preserve and 2) the need of LF Projects to ensure that community members are able to discuss the projects with which LF Projects is associated and to accurately describe the relationship between LF Projects 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 mark of LF Projects is provided for in this policy and in the statement of permitted use, if any, that may accompany 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 LF Projects has no intention of interfering with that right, your right to use any specific trademark of LF Projects 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.
Proper use of LF Projects trademarks by following these trademark usage guidelines protects the value of LF Projects trademarks. Any use of or reference to LF Projects trademarks that is inconsistent with this trademark policy, or use of marks that are confusingly similar to trademarks of LF Projects, is prohibited. All uses of LF Projects trademarks, and all goodwill associated therewith, will inure solely to the benefit of LF Projects.
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 mark of LF Projects, 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 mark of LF Projects, 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 mark of LF Projects 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 LF Projects 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 LF Projects project websites.
Rules and Policies Applicable to Marks Owned by LF Projects
In addition to the generally applicable rules discussed above, there are a few specific rules that we ask everyone to follow when using trademarks owned by LF Projects.
- Use the full form of any trademarks (e.g., “LF Projects”) in the first reference in all documents of mass communication, including marketing collateral and web pages. You may then use any abbreviated or short form references within the same the document where the full form has already been used.
- Use LF Projects’ trademarks in a form that distinguishes them from the text around them, such as by capitalization, bold or italic fonts, or with quotation marks. Any use of registered trademarks listed above should include the ® symbol immediately after the first usage (e.g., “LF Projects® projects develop open source….”). Any use of unregistered trademarks listed above should include a TM immediately after the first usage (e.g., “The Core Infrastructure Initiative™ community seeks to secure….”)
- Do not use LF Projects trademarks in a manner that would disparage LF Projects or its projects (e.g., untruthful advertising, false/misleading promotional materials, etc.).
- Do not use a LF Projects logo on the cover of a book or magazine without written permission from LF Projects.
- Do not use LF Projects trademarks more prominently than your own company, product or service name.
- Do not use a logo of LF Projects on posters, brochures, signs, websites, or other marketing materials to promote your events, products or services without written permission from LF Projects.
- Do not refer to a product or service as being certified under any of LF Projects’ marks unless your company has successfully undergone the requisite compliance testing and has explicit authorization to use such terms from LF Projects.
- Do not attempt to claim or assert any ownership rights in any mark of LF Projects and do not attempt to register any LF Projects trademark as a trademark, trade name, domain name, or “doing business as” name, alone or (unless specifically licensed) in combination with your own trademarks.
LF Projects marks have been created and their use is expressly permitted for a specific purpose. Do not use logos or names of LF Projects in any commercial or marketing context other than as expressly permitted in this policy unless you have obtained explicit written permission from LF Projects to do so. LF Projects permits the use of its trademarks for private and personal use to make t-shirts, stickers, and 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 trademark or logo of LF Projects as a link to the home page of the applicable project or to a web page on LF Projects web site that is relevant to the reference so long as 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 logo of LF Projects shall be done using the official versions of LF Projects logos obtained from LF Projects or its projects.
Certain marks of LF Projects 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 LF Projects’ association with the product. The use of the mark cannot imply that LF Projects or its projects are sponsoring or endorsing the product. The following are examples of proper and improper usage of these trademarks of LF Projects:
Correct: <your product name> for <LF Projects mark>
Correct: <your product/company name> plug-in for <LF Projects mark>
Correct: <your product name> compatible with <LF Projects mark>
Correct: <your product name> for use with <LF Projects mark>
Correct: Quick Start for <LF Projects mark> by <your company name>
Incorrect: <LF Projects mark> <your product name>
Incorrect: <LF Projects mark> by <your company name>
Incorrect: <LF Projects mark> – <your product name>
Incorrect: <your product/company name> – <LF Projects mark>
Incorrect: <LF Projects mark> Quick Start by <your company name>
Questions, Comments, Concerns
We look to our community to help us retain the value of LF Projects’ trade and service marks. If you have questions with respect to these guidelines or to report concerns regarding the use or misuse of a trademark of LF Projects, or to obtain written permission for a proposed use of LF Projects trademarks, contact: trademarks@lfprojects.org
Disclaimer
LF Projects 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. LF Projects does not warrant that any pending trademark applications for trademarks of LF Projects will result in any granted trademark protection. LF Projects shall not be liable for any claims relating to your use of trademarks of LF Projects.
Updates
LF Projects may release new versions of LF Projects trademark policy or statements of permitted use of LF Projects marks 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 4.0 International license (“CC BY 4.0”, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).