Trademark Guidelines

Trademark Guidelines

We’ve developed these guidelines to ensure our company trademarks are properly displayed and remain undiluted across our customer, partner, and plugin ecosystems. Among the reasons our trademark guidelines are important include:

We want our brand to be associated with awesome tools that help every team unleash their full potential. The more focused the use of the brand, the more powerful it will be in the community.

More people and companies are building plugins and becoming partners or ambassadors of BigLedger and our products. They are asking for additional guidelines around how to market, design, and brand their plugins and products so they (1) complement the BigLedger product “family”, and (2) are distinct from BigLedger products while remaining part of the BigLedger community.

We want to avoid potential conflicts that may arise. If your brand is not clearly differentiated, customers may struggle to identify who to work with or what to buy. As a way of protecting our brands, as well as the best interests of our 3rd party developers and customers, we are publishing these expanded guidelines.

Our Trademarks

BigLedger uses several terms and logos as active trademarks in branding its products and services. BigLedger has also registered or applied for registration of some of these trademarks in Australia, the United States, and other countries worldwide. We have done this to protect and preserve the marks for our community of customers, developers, partners, and supporters to benefit everyone involved with BigLedger. By this, we mean that people should be able to recognize when a product is from BigLedger.

Your use of the BigLedger trademarks must be consistent with these trademark guidelines, which include additional guidelines that may apply to you based on your relationship with BigLedger. If you wish to use a BigLedger logo, the logo should be sourced from an official BigLedger site, used without modification, and follow relevant usage guidelines.

BigLedger’s trademark rights are not limited to the marks contained in this document. BigLedger monitors the use of its trademarks and reserves the right to request that third parties modify or terminate any use that violates these Guidelines, creates a likelihood of confusion, or dilutes BigLedger’s trademarks.

For Our Customers and the General Public

BigLedger embraces “fair use” of its trademarks. As such, you may use the foregoing trademarks to identify BigLedger and its family of products, for example, in your website, blog, news article, or product review, without our written consent, as long as you use them without modification or deceptive intent and do not cause a likelihood of confusion between yourself and BigLedger’s brands.

For Our Partners and Vendors

BigLedger recognizes that there is a large ecosystem of authorized partners and vendors whose businesses are intertwined with the BigLedger brand. Accordingly, BigLedger provides these guidelines to ensure that all parties are clear as to the permissible uses of BigLedger’s trademarks. As a general matter, our authorized partners and vendors have permission to use BigLedger’s trademarks to promote BigLedger and its products, or your own related products and services, provided that the trademarks are used in unmodified form in accordance with these guidelines, without deceptive intent, and without creating a likelihood of confusion between yourself and BigLedger’s brands.

Logos
BigLedger logos are distinctive graphic renditions. You may use the BigLedger logo or product logos to promote BigLedger, its products, or your own related products or services, provided that the logos are duplicated exactly as shown in the preceding link, without any modification (aside from re-sizing), and without combining or transposing BigLedger’s logo with your own logo. All other usages of the BigLedger logos require the written approval of BigLedger.

Naming
In the BigLedger ecosystem, the BigLedger product names are often used in naming compatible 3rd party products. Below are some guidelines for using BigLedger product naming conventions in your work:

It’s okay to use BigLedger’s trademarks in the name of your compatible software product. However, it must be clear that your product is a third-party product and not a product offered by BigLedger.

BigLedger discourages its partners and vendors from using company names that include BigLedger trademarks, as that leads to complications with the domain name restrictions discussed below.

Domains
BigLedger’s trademarks (or similar terms) should not be used in your domain name. This is misleading because it represents you as BigLedger. You may, however, use BigLedger trademarks in the URL path. 

Moreover, your website should look like your website, not ours. It should not borrow heavily from or closely resemble BigLedger’s website or web properties. For the sake of customers and consumers, distinguishable websites help everyone.

Additional Guidelines
Please note that depending on your relationship with BigLedger, additional limitations may apply to your use of BigLedger’s trademarks. In particular, BigLedger Marketplace vendors are subject to the BigLedger Marketplace Vendor Agreement and the BigLedger Brand Guidelines for Marketplace Vendors. BigLedger authorized partners should review the terms of their agreements with BigLedger and the Partner Brand Guidelines posted on the Akaun.com Vendor Agreement , Bigledger Customer Agreement , and Bigledger Reseller Agreement for any additional limitations that may apply to the use of BigLedger trademarks. BigLedger’s authorized partners and vendors are also subject to its Adwords Trademark Policy governing the use of BigLedger trademarks as keywords in search advertising. The BigLedger Brand Guidelines for Marketplace Vendors, Partner Brand Guidelines, and Adwords Trademark Policy, as amended by BigLedger from time to time, are incorporated into these Trademark Guidelines in their entirety.

Filing for Trademark Protection
While authorized BigLedger partners and vendors may use BigLedger marks and logos, subject to these Trademark Guidelines, to promote BigLedger and their related businesses, this permissible use does not confer any ownership over the BigLedger trademarks. As such, authorized partners and vendors should not file for legal protection for a trademark that contains or is confusingly similar to, any BigLedger mark or logo. 

BigLedger Style
In addition to trademarks, BigLedger has developed artwork, screenshots, and imagery for our website and other web properties. BigLedger’s website “look” or “feel” should not be reproduced or mimicked for the same reasons cited above: consumers can be confused about whether they’re dealing with BigLedger or another company. Similarly, BigLedger’s proprietary font should not be used by third parties, including partners or vendors, unless it is included in materials provided by BigLedger and approved for third-party use. The BigLedger website and creative works embodied therein are the intellectual property of BigLedger. Reproduction or “creative borrowing” of the website or of individual artworks, screenshots, or imagery without permission is a violation of BigLedger’s copyright.

Grandfathering
BigLedger’s Trademark Guidelines were introduced at a point in time when some companies and individuals had already created product names that include the BigLedger trademarks in a manner that does not comply with the Guidelines. we do request that all companies and individuals give proper notice and attribution of the BigLedger trademarks and that any new product name will follow these guidelines.

If you have any questions about the use of BigLedger marks or logos, please contact us at sales@bigledger.com.