3 ms·

Seems like a lot of trademark infringement suits about to come their way. Am I mistaken or is there no way this viable? In addition, nobody has any legal right

Seems like a lot of trademark infringement suits about to come their way. Am I mistaken or is there no way this viable? In addition, nobody has any legal right to put others trademarks (use these) on anything without the trademark owners permission. So even if the site and distribution is somehow OK, nobody can really use them anyway. Right?

benatkin 2y ago
These and others have been online for a while, so I doubt it. There's more here, under the Brands / Social category: https://icones.js.org/ https://icones.js.org/ Yes, there are ways someone could use them that would not only run afoul of the trademark, but have trademark holders come after them. However, that doesn't make this useless, because there are proper and gray-area uses of these as well.
anticorporate 2y ago
They probably each carry their own licensing and terms of use. I'd suspect there's a good number where reuse in some situations would be permitted, and in others would not. But every single one is going to be different, and just making assumptions is a quick way to blindly assume enormous legal liability.
- hobofan 2y ago
  That's why SimpleIcons contains metadata about that, so if you are worried about that, you can just exclude any icons that have explicit licensing information attached.
  - anticorporate 2y ago
    If I were going to use these in my product, I would only do it the other way around. If there's no explicit license, I'm not touching someone else's trademark.
aniviacat 2y ago
I assume most brands are happy to see their icons being used/shared on as many platforms as possible. It's just free advertisment. If someone uses them in a context that's actually problematic for the brand, the brand can still sue them then. But that won't be the common case.
ashu1461 2y ago
You can usually use the assets which are available on the official website, example for meta it is https://about.meta.com/brand/resources/facebook/logo/ https://about.meta.com/brand/resources/facebook/logo/. If you see the official logo it has different colors than the one provided in the website, so you can't that for production use cases.
diggan 2y ago
Font Awesome been available since 2013 at least, featuring brand icons https://web.archive.org/web/20130608045113/http://fontawesome.io/icons#brand https://web.archive.org/web/20130608045113/http://fontawesom... Seems fine
- duxup 2y ago
  I always assumed Font Awesome had some business agreement with those orgs eventually as font awesome did charge for some of their icons IIRC. Having said that, I'm not sure even that is legally necessary.
  - strogonoff 2y ago
    I imagine avoiding IP legal issues with things like icons could be less about signing agreements with all involved companies and more about having a team that can respond professionally to an inquiry. Businesses may often not really understand what’s going on and default to being worried about third-party use of their trademarks that they normally must defend. Perhaps they don’t need to worry in this case, where it may actually provide a bit of free advertisement, but if there’s no one on the other side then it wouldn’t help the case. IANAL
vultour 2y ago
It has existed for years and they actively remove icons when they get a takedown request. I'm sure most companies other than Oracle are happy to be there.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Supplying the assets is not a problem. Most stock art orgs have brands. I suspect that they can get into "gray areas," if they charge for it. Using them is the problematic part.
duxup 2y ago
I'm not sure if simply offering a brand's logo would be trademark infringement. Years ago someone contacted me at the company I worked for claiming in some sorta pseudo legal language that we couldn't have one of our competitor's logos on our website. We had it on a promotional page comparing features across similar products. Turns out we can do that in the US.
tialaramex 2y ago
You're mostly fine unless you are confusing consumers. The purpose of these marks is exactly to avoid that, so you're going to get into a lot of trouble if you use the marks to mislead people in any way. Take the Air China logo - if a not-so-bright reader might think you are Air China, you're using this all wrong. But if you use an Air China logo to signify the routes actually flown by Air China on a free world map of international flights on your web site, well, yeah, that's Air China, nobody is misled, even a moron knows the little logos on your map of the world aren't actually jet aeroplanes.
audiodude 2y ago
It's not trademark infringement to copy or display a logo. Trademark infringement happens when you confuse customers by using a logo or phrase and make them think that you're selling the actual product or that you're somehow endorsed by the original company.
nottorp 2y ago
Isn't it also copyright infringement, and thus punishable by death in some enlightened jurisdictions [1], or at least by thousands in damages per infringement? How many infringements do you generate by just loading the front page? [1] Those most exposed to Hollywood lobbying.
reynard_le_faux 2y ago
Don’t tell every SaaS company ever. (Who I doubt all have robust legal processes for including logos on their homepages)

benatkin 2y ago

These and others have been online for a while, so I doubt it. There's more here, under the Brands / Social category: https://icones.js.org/ https://icones.js.org/ Yes, there are ways someone could use them that would not only run afoul of the trademark, but have trademark holders come after them. However, that doesn't make this useless, because there are proper and gray-area uses of these as well.

anticorporate 2y ago

They probably each carry their own licensing and terms of use. I'd suspect there's a good number where reuse in some situations would be permitted, and in others would not. But every single one is going to be different, and just making assumptions is a quick way to blindly assume enormous legal liability.

hobofan 2y ago
That's why SimpleIcons contains metadata about that, so if you are worried about that, you can just exclude any icons that have explicit licensing information attached.
- anticorporate 2y ago
  If I were going to use these in my product, I would only do it the other way around. If there's no explicit license, I'm not touching someone else's trademark.

aniviacat 2y ago

I assume most brands are happy to see their icons being used/shared on as many platforms as possible. It's just free advertisment. If someone uses them in a context that's actually problematic for the brand, the brand can still sue them then. But that won't be the common case.

ashu1461 2y ago

You can usually use the assets which are available on the official website, example for meta it is https://about.meta.com/brand/resources/facebook/logo/ https://about.meta.com/brand/resources/facebook/logo/. If you see the official logo it has different colors than the one provided in the website, so you can't that for production use cases.

diggan 2y ago

Font Awesome been available since 2013 at least, featuring brand icons https://web.archive.org/web/20130608045113/http://fontawesome.io/icons#brand https://web.archive.org/web/20130608045113/http://fontawesom... Seems fine

duxup 2y ago
I always assumed Font Awesome had some business agreement with those orgs eventually as font awesome did charge for some of their icons IIRC. Having said that, I'm not sure even that is legally necessary.
- strogonoff 2y ago
  I imagine avoiding IP legal issues with things like icons could be less about signing agreements with all involved companies and more about having a team that can respond professionally to an inquiry. Businesses may often not really understand what’s going on and default to being worried about third-party use of their trademarks that they normally must defend. Perhaps they don’t need to worry in this case, where it may actually provide a bit of free advertisement, but if there’s no one on the other side then it wouldn’t help the case. IANAL

vultour 2y ago

It has existed for years and they actively remove icons when they get a takedown request. I'm sure most companies other than Oracle are happy to be there.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

Supplying the assets is not a problem. Most stock art orgs have brands. I suspect that they can get into "gray areas," if they charge for it. Using them is the problematic part.

duxup 2y ago

I'm not sure if simply offering a brand's logo would be trademark infringement. Years ago someone contacted me at the company I worked for claiming in some sorta pseudo legal language that we couldn't have one of our competitor's logos on our website. We had it on a promotional page comparing features across similar products. Turns out we can do that in the US.

tialaramex 2y ago

You're mostly fine unless you are confusing consumers. The purpose of these marks is exactly to avoid that, so you're going to get into a lot of trouble if you use the marks to mislead people in any way. Take the Air China logo - if a not-so-bright reader might think you are Air China, you're using this all wrong. But if you use an Air China logo to signify the routes actually flown by Air China on a free world map of international flights on your web site, well, yeah, that's Air China, nobody is misled, even a moron knows the little logos on your map of the world aren't actually jet aeroplanes.

audiodude 2y ago

It's not trademark infringement to copy or display a logo. Trademark infringement happens when you confuse customers by using a logo or phrase and make them think that you're selling the actual product or that you're somehow endorsed by the original company.

nottorp 2y ago

Isn't it also copyright infringement, and thus punishable by death in some enlightened jurisdictions [1], or at least by thousands in damages per infringement? How many infringements do you generate by just loading the front page? [1] Those most exposed to Hollywood lobbying.

reynard_le_faux 2y ago

Don’t tell every SaaS company ever. (Who I doubt all have robust legal processes for including logos on their homepages)