FAQ
Maemo Trademark FAQ
Q: Why has the name Maemo been protected with trademark registrations?
A: With Maemo Nokia aimed to encourage others to adopt, use and contribute technologies for handheld products, software platforms and applications. Trademarks are used as a guarantee to users and customers of products and services. They differentiate goods and services and identify their origin. Maemo trademark policy attempts to balance between two competing interests: Need of Maemo to ensure that its trademarks remain reliable indicators of quality and security and need of maemo to ensure that Maemo community members, software companies and distributors and other parties Maemo works with are able to discuss Maemo and accurately describe their relationship with Maemo. This aim is continued with Maemo Community e.V..
Q: What is the preferred way to write the name Maemo?
A: The preferred way to write the name Maemo is to use a capital "M" and lower case letters for the remaining letters (e.g. “Maemo”). If you are writing an “official document” like a book or presentation you should also distinguish Maemo trademark from surrounding words. For that you can use, for example, italics, bold, name in quotes or different font.
Q: Can I use Maemo as a part of the name of my software product?
A: Yes, but only on request. Use of a trademark in the name of a product gives an impression that the owner of the trademark has approved the product in question, and supervises its quality. Since Maemo Community e.V. cannot take this kind of responsibility over the Maemo compatible products, the trademark Maemo may not be used in the name of your product or service without explicit written permission from Maemo Community e.V.
Q: I already have an application/plug-in/theme/… product that contains the name Maemo. Do I need to change the name of my product or ask permission from Maemo Community e.V. to continue using my current product name?
A: If you have published your product or service before Maemo published the first draft version of the Maemo trademark policy (before 11.5.2007) you do not need to do anything. Maemo trademark policy and Maemo trademark usage guidelines are applied only to those products and services that are published after the first draft version of Maemo trademark policy was published.
Q: How can I tell that my product is compatible with Maemo?
A: Proper references to Maemo are for example the following statements: “This software is compatible with Maemo platform”, “This solution is developed for Maemo 4” or “This product can be used in connection with Maemo products”. If you want to emphasize the compatibility of your product with maemo you can also refer to Maemo in your product name like this “<your product name> for Maemo” or <your product name> plug-in for Maemo 4”.
Q: I want to link from my website to www.maemo.org. Am I allowed to do that?
A: Of course. It is allowed to use also the maemo.org logo as a link to web pages at the address of www.maemo.org. If the maemo.org logo is used the link should be done using the official version of the maemo.org logo. Official maemo.org logos are available from www.maemo.org/legal/terms_of_use/trademarks/logos.
Q: Can I get permission to use the maemo.org logo and name to promote my application/service/book?
A: Maybe. You need to contact Maemo Community e.V. explicitly and ask permission to use the maemo.org logo for marketing or other commercial usage. In case you want to use a maemo.org logo or name for noncommercial, private and personal use (to print maemo.org t-shirts, create maemo.org wallpapers, etc) you are allowed to do that as long as you will maintain the good reputation and value of the trademark.
Q: Where can I find more information about the Maemo trademark?
A: Please see our Maemo trademark policy (www.maemo.org/legal/terms_of_use/trademarks) and Maemo trademark usage guidelines (www.maemo.org/legal/terms_of_use/trademarks/trademark_usage_guidelines) for more information. If you still haven’t found an answer to your question, please contact trademarks@maemo.org. Maemo Community e.V. may release new versions of Maemo trademark policy or related documents at any time 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-Share Alike 3.0 License.