Email Templates used by Apache projects for contacting third parties to report misuses of their trademarks.

Overview¶

This email template is a sample starting place for sending a first contact to a third party that a PMC believes is misusing an Apache trademark directly in conjunction with a software product offering or download. Misuses in other cases - either with a software service, training, consulting, or anything not product related use a different letter.

Once you use the Apache Trademark Use Reporting Guidelines to confirm that this specific use of your project's trademark(s) is improper, use this email template to contact the other company/organization to ask them to stop. You may need to do some digging to find some appropriate contact emails.

Process To Send An EMail¶

• Copy the below template and substitute THEIRNAME, PROJECTNAME, YOURNAME
• Find one or more URLs that clearly show the improper use
• Provide a DETAILSOFISSUE that specifies the exact URLs, as well as the specific phrases, logos, or sections of those web page(s) that are problematic. If necessary, provide a brief explanation of why the uses are improper (to help explain and tie it into our trademark policy).
• Provide a DETAILSOFCHANGES that briefly describes some of the steps the other party must take to correct this. For software products, it is most often ensuring the Powered By/For phrasing is always used, and the "Apache" is always included before your PROJECTNAME.
• If you are a PMC member but not the VP, change the footer. If you are not a PMC member, you should not be using this letter; ask your PMC to do it on the private@projectname mailing list.
• Always cc: your private@ list, and the trademarks@apache.org list.
• Be sure to make any additions in a professional and polite manner.
• Set an appropriate Reply-To header to help ensure the right Apache people or private lists get replies.

After You Send Email¶

Remember that trademark and legal issues are often handled by corporate officers or lawyers who may not be familiar with Apache project communities, so please be patient, and ensure any responses are professional in manner.

• If the other party writes back in a combative manner, or has their legal counsel write back, do NOT respond back other than to acknowledge their response "Thank you for the response, we will review and get back to you". Work with trademarks@ to get a proper response for any negative replies.
• If the other party writes back with a positive answer or clarifying questions, work in a polite way to get them on track, asking for assistance of trademarks@ as needed, and providing links to the Apache trademark policy, FAQ, or your project website as needed.
• If the other party does not write back at all, wait 2 weeks, then send the mail again with a reminder that we are still waiting for an answer. If that does not get a response, ask for help on trademarks@. IMPORTANT: the ASF is not interested in forcing anyone to unduly rush to correct most problems. As long as the other party acknowledges the mistake and has a plan to correct it, we can have some patience until all corrections are made (for example, if they have a large website that requires multiple updates).

Once the other party claims they are in compliance with our policy and have made the changes, be sure to go back to their URLs to verify their compliance. If there are still problems with how they are using Apache trademarks, write back with specific details of what we'd like to see changed.

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EMail Template For Software Product Misuses¶

Subject: Misuse of the ASF's PROJECTNAME trademark

Dear THEIRNAME:

The Apache Software Foundation (“ASF”) is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit public charity that provides organizational, legal, and financial support for nearly 200 independently led open source software projects under the Apache® brand.

One of the ASF’s important activities is uniting our communities by using Apache trademarks and logos to identify projects and software developed by our volunteer communities. Unfortunately, an increasing number of companies are claiming improper connections with Apache software projects and the software products we produce, often in a way that harms the vendor neutral and independent governance that Apache projects are widely known for.

It has come to our attention that your company may be improperly using our Apache PROJECTNAME trademark(s) in the following case(s):

DETAILSOFISSUE

We trust that this misuse is inadvertent, but we nonetheless must insist that you update your use of Apache trademarks including Apache PROJECTNAME in a way that complies with the ASF's trademark policies:

http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/

http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/faq/#products

In particular, we ask that you change:

DETAILSOFCHANGES

We trust that you will not take any action that would result in further misuse of Apache PROJECTNAME. The ASF relies on the cooperation of vendors using Apache software to properly utilize Apache trademarks and graphic logos in order to give the independent communities that build our software the credit they deserve. For more background on the importance of vendor neutrality required of all Apache projects, please see:

http://community.apache.org/projectIndependence

Please provide written assurance that you will comply with ASF’s policy and guidelines for trademarks and graphic logos and cease this misuse of Apache trademarks within the next 3 weeks (21 days). If you believe that you have received this letter by mistake and that your use of Apache PROJECTNAME does comply with ASF’s policy and guidelines, please provide an email response detailing your compliance instead.

Please Reply-All to include all appropriate ASF committees with your response; the trademarks@ and private@ addresses are privately archived. This letter is made without prejudice to any other rights or remedies that may be available to ASF.

Thank you for your time and respect of Apache trademarks,

YOURNAME

Vice President, Apache PROJECTNAME

The Apache Software Foundation

http://PROJECTNAME.apache.org