Bencher Trademark Policy

Introduction

This document, the “Policy,” outlines the Bencher project’s (the “Project”) policy for the use of our trademarks. While some of our software is available under a free and open source software license (Bencher License Agreement), the copyright license does not include any right, express or implied, to use our trademarks. These guidelines are where we describe how you may use our trademarks.

The role of trademarks is to provide assurance about the quality of the products or services with which the trademark is associated. But because an open source license allows your unrestricted modification of the copyrighted software, we cannot be sure that your modifications to the software are ones that will not be misleading if distributed under the same name. Instead, this Policy describes the circumstances under which you may use our trademarks to accurately describe your use of the Project software.

In this Policy we are not trying to limit the lawful use of our trademarks, but rather describe for you what we consider the parameters of lawful use to be. Trademark law can be ambiguous, so we hope to provide enough clarity for you to understand whether we will consider your use non-infringing.

The sections that follow describe what trademarks are covered by this Policy, as well as uses of the trademarks that are allowed without additional permission from us. If you want to use our trademarks in ways that are not described in this Policy, please contact us. Any use that does not comply with this Policy or for which we have not separately provided written permission is not a use that we have approved, so you must decide for yourself whether the use is nevertheless lawful.

Our commitment to open source principles

We want to encourage and facilitate the use of our software by the community, but do so in a way that still ensures that the trademarks are meaningful as a source and quality indicator for the software and the associated goods and services. This Policy therefore tries to strike the proper balance between our need to ensure that our trademarks remain reliable indicators of the qualities that they are meant to preserve and your ability to fully exercise the rights granted in the open source license.

Trademarks subject to the guidelines

Our trademarks

This Policy covers our word trademarks and service marks (the “Marks”):

Mark	Common descriptive name for the goods or services
BENCHER	Computer Software
🐰 BENCHER	Computer Software
BENCHER CLOUD	Computer Services

Some Marks may not be registered, but registration does not equal ownership of trademarks. This Policy covers our Marks whether they are registered or not. The trademarks we are not licensing in this Policy

The following trademarks are ones that are reserved exclusively to our use and are not covered by the Policy:

Universal considerations for all uses

Whenever you use one of the Marks, you must always do so in a way that does not mislead anyone, either directly or by omission, about exactly what they are getting and from whom. The law reflects this requirement in two major ways described in more detail below: it prohibits creating a “likelihood of confusion” but allows for “nominative use.” For example, you cannot say you are distributing the Bencher software when you’re distributing a modified version of it, because people would be confused when they are not getting the same features and functionality they would get if they downloaded the software directly from us. You also cannot use our logo on your website in a way that suggests that your website is an official website or that we endorse your website. You can, though, say you like the Bencher software, that you participate in the Bencher community, that you are providing the binary of the Mark software obtained from the Project, or that you wrote a book describing how to use the Bencher software.

This fundamental requirement, that it is always clear to people what they are getting and from whom, is reflected throughout this Policy. It should also serve as your guide if you are not sure about how you are using the Marks.

You may not use the Marks in association with the use or distribution of software if you are also not in compliance with the copyright license for the software.

You may not use or register, in whole or in part, the Marks as part of your own trademark, service mark, domain name, company name, trade name, product name, or service name.

Trademark law does not allow your use of names or trademarks that are too similar to ours. You therefore may not use an obvious variation of any of our Marks or any phonetic equivalent, foreign language equivalent, takeoff, or abbreviation for a similar or compatible product or service. We would consider the following too similar to one of our Marks:

Bench
🐰 Bench
Bench Cloud
🐰 Benchmark
Benchmark Cloud
Benchmarker
🐰 Benchmarker
Benchmarker Cloud
Any logo similar to our own

You agree that you will not acquire any rights in the Marks and that any goodwill generated by your use of the Marks inures solely to our benefit.