Trademark Information and Guidelines
This document provides practical guidance on the proper use of the Commonhaus Foundation’s trademarks in text, publications, and materials. It explains how to mark trademarks, when to use specific symbols, and how to ensure clarity and compliance in various forms of communication. Additionally, it offers an overview of essential trademark concepts to help you understand legal considerations such as “likelihood of confusion” and “nominative use.”
These guidelines are intended to support respectful and legally compliant use of the Foundation’s trademarks, preserving their integrity and meaning for our community.
Proper trademark use
These rules apply to all trademarks, not just ours; you should follow them for our Marks as well as other trademark holders.
Guidelines and fact sheets with these recommendations are available from the International Trademark Association.
Trademark marking and legends
The first or most prominent mention of a Mark on a webpage, document, packaging, or documentation should be accompanied by a symbol indicating whether the mark is a registered trademark ("®") or an unregistered trademark ("™"). See our Trademark List for the correct symbol to use.
If you are using our Marks as described in the Trademark Policy, please include the following notice at the bottom of the page where the Mark is used (or, in a book, on the credits page), on any packaging or labeling, and on advertising or marketing materials:
- For registered trademarks: "<<~Mark>> is a trademark of Commonhaus Foundation, registered in the United States and other countries. Used with permission."
- For unregistered trademarks: "<<~Mark>> is a trademark of Commonhaus Foundation. Used with permission."
Use of trademarks in text
Distinguish trademarks from surrounding text. Use initial caps at a minimum, or enhance with quotes, bold, italics, a different font, or color.
- Incorrect: hibernate
- Correct: Hibernate, HIBERNATE
Use trademarks in their exact form with correct spelling. Do not abbreviate, hyphenate, or combine with other words.
- Incorrect: Easy Mock, easy mock, easy-mock
- Correct: EasyMock
- See our Trademark List to verify exactly how the marks should appear.
Use trademarks as adjectives modifying nouns, especially the first time they appear in print. Refer to our preferred nouns on the Trademark List.
- Incorrect: This is EasyMock.
- Correct: This is the EasyMock library.
Avoid possessive or plural forms. Trademarks describe generic nouns and are not possessive or plural. (An exception applies when referring to the Foundation’s name.)
- Incorrect: I have five Quarkuses in my application.
- Correct: I have five Quarkus extensions in my application.
- Incorrect: Jackson’s unique serialization …
- Correct: Unique serialization capability of Jackson …
- Correct: Commonhaus Foundation’s IP Policy …
Do not use trademarks as verbs. Trademarks represent products or services, not actions.
- Incorrect: I JReleasered my deployment today!
- Correct: I used JReleaser to deploy my application today!
Do not translate trademarks into another language.
- Incorrect: Quiero instalar hibernar en mi proyecto.
- Correct: Quiero instalar Hibernate en mi proyecto.
Use of Logos
Use only official versions of Logos obtained from the Commonhaus Foundation or its Projects.
You may not change any Logo except to scale it. This means you may not add decorative elements, change the colors, change the proportions, distort it, add elements, or combine it with other logos.
When the context requires the use of black-and-white graphics and the logo is color, you may reproduce the logo in a manner that produces a black-and-white image.
If you have other needs or ideas for logo use, please contact us.
General information about Trademarks
What is a trademark?
A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.
A service mark is the same as a trademark, except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product.
Trade dress or "get up" refers to the look and feel of the packaging, which in this context can include the layout, colors, images, and design choices in a web page.
Throughout these guidelines and our Trademark Policy, the terms "trademark" and "mark" refer to both trademarks, service marks and trade dress.
The use of a word when it is used functionally as part of the software program, for example, in a file, folder, directory, or path name is not as a trademark. Use in this way is not a trademark infringement.
What is "likelihood of confusion"?
There is trademark infringement if your use of a trademark has created a "likelihood of confusion." This means using a trademark in a way that will likely confuse or deceive the relevant consuming public about the source of a product or service using the mark in question.
Some examples:
If the "Foo" software extension removes all double spaces after periods, but someone else later creates "Foo" software that adds a third space after periods, consumers would be confused between the two and the newcomer will likely be a trademark infringer.
If a company makes "Foobar" software and a third party offers training called "Foobar Certification," a person is likely to believe, wrongly, that the certification is being offered by the makers of Foobar software. The third party has likely misled consumers about the source of its training and is a trademark infringer.
What is "nominative" use?
So-called "nominative use" (or "nominative fair use"), which is the name of the doctrine under U.S. trademark law, allows the use of another's trademark where it is necessary for understanding. Other countries' trademark laws also have similar provisions.
For example, a car repair shop that specializes in a particular brand of automobile, VW for example, must be allowed to say that they repair VW cars. Here is what you should consider when deciding whether your use of a trademark is a nominative fair use:
- Can you identify the product or service in question without using the trademark;
- Are you avoiding a likelihood of confusion in the way that you have used the trademark; and
- Have you used only as much as is necessary to identify the product or service.
With our "Foobar Certification" example above, the person offering the certification would be allowed to say, under the nominative fair use doctrine, that she is offering "Maude's Certification for Foobar software."
It is almost never the case that using a Logo will be a nominative fair use since it will be a rare case where the logo is needed for strictly informational purposes.