Trademark Policy
Vicidial Group Trademark Policy
The Vicidial Group is very serious about its intellectual property rights. The trademark VICIdial stands for the most popular Open Source call center suite that is a high quality product with a dedicated company and community that stand behind it.
All trademarks appearing on vicidial.com and it’s affiliated domains are property of their respective owners.
This trademark use policy sets forth basic terms and conditions for the proper use of the VICIdial trademark that we expect all persons and companies to abide by when using the word VICIdial in any way(whether in a domain name, path, advertising, tag line, website, portion of a word or product offering or any other use). You must abide by these terms and conditions unless you have an express arrangement with the Vicidial Group. We strive for open communication and if you have any questions about the trademark use of VICIdial, please contact us.
General
Some of the software created and released by the Vicidial Group, such as the VICIdial Call Center Suite, is distributed under the GPL and/or AGPL version 2 licenses as “open source” software. While this means that the copyright of the software is open and usable under the rights allowed within those licenses, it does not affect our trademark rights and our ability to control the use of our trademark. In order to preserve and maintain our trademark and the quality of the VICIdial name, we must strictly control the trademark use. Even though you may distribute and modify our software under the GPL and/or AGPL licenses, you may use our trademark in connection with those modifications and distributions only if you comply with this policy (or other agreement with the Vicidial Group specific to you).
Understanding that under the GPL/AGPL licenses, developers may make changes to the original VICIdial code, the Vicidial Group considers it important to denote a difference between “Genuine” VICIdial software and third-party developed versions. Genuine VICIdial software is software that is in the same form as it was released by the Vicidial Group with no changes made to it. Once a change has been made to the software it is no longer considered Genuine VICIdial Software.
Policy Term and Updates
The Vicidial Group reserves the right to modify this policy at any time. You should check this policy at least once a year. The posted date of this policy will be August 7, and you should check this policy by that time every year for changes.
Non Approved Trademark Uses
None of the following uses are allowed by this policy:
1. Use of a Trademark in a domain name, or part of a URL.
2. Use of a Trademark in a company name.
3. Use of a Trademark in a product or service name unless the product or service is a Genuine VICIdial product or service.
4. Use of a Trademark in a website/webpage title, TITLE, META or other source tag, or other use with the intent(whether intentional or not) with the likely effect of influencing search engine rankings or results listings. This section does not prohibit “fair use” or basic use of Word Form of the Trademark in the content of the web page itself as long as usage is in accordance with the remainder of the terms of this Policy. For example, if you are a consultant, you may advertise that you provide services relating to VICIdial, but you should not do so in such a manner that applies the VICIdial Trademark to your services (such as “We are a provider of VICIdial services”), because this suggests that you are providing services under the VICIdial brand.
5. Use of a Trademark to refer to services offered by you or your company, or to suggest that your services are authorized or endorsed by the Vicidial Group.
6. Use of a Trademark in a manner that creates a “combined mark,” or use that integrates other wording with the Trademark in a way that the public may think of the use as a new mark (for example, FastVICIDIAL, or VICIdial Lite).
7. Use of a Trademark in a manner that disparages the Vicidial Group or its products or services.
8. Use that does not comply with the Trademark Marking and Notice section and the Form of Use sections of this Policy
9. Use that violates any provision of this Policy
The Vicidial Group will review circumstances such as the above on a case-by-case basis as information comes to the Vicidial Group’s attention.
Uses Permitted Under this Policy
Subject to the other terms of this Policy, the Vicidial Group will allow you to use the Trademark in the following circumstances, as long as your use complies with the Trademark Marking and Notice Section and the Form of Use sections of this Policy:
1. Descriptive Use without the necessity of a written agreement with the Vicidial Group(“fair use”): Trademark law permits use of Word Marks (Trademarks in a word form for example “VICIdial”) for descriptive purposes without the necessity of a trademark license. For illustration purposes, you may advertise that your company works on VICIdial systems or to describe the goods or services that you sell/develop as long as the usage does not confuse the public into believe there is an affiliation between yourself and the Vicidial Group or that you create Genuine VICIdial Software.
2. GPL/AGPL Attribution: The Word Form (as described, below) of a Trademark may be used in documentation accompanying distribution of code under the GPL and/or AGPL, to the extent necessary to comply with the requirements of the GPL and/or AGPL regarding attribution and origin.
3. Open Source Project References: the Vicidial Group recognizes the value of the open source community, and is committed to keeping that community as an active discussion and development area for the advancement of the VICIdial project.
The following is a small list of some examples of acceptable use of the VICIdial Trademark:
1. An Open Source project is being developed to extend functionality with VICIdial reporting. An acceptable project title could be one of the following: ADVANCED REPORTS FOR VICIdial or VICIdial MASTER REPORTS. We would strongly discourage, a name such as VICIDIALREPORTS.
2. A project being developed or sold that is designed to work with VICIdial can be described as “VICIdial compatible”.
3. A project that is being developed or sold that incorporated a version of VICIdial which is considered Genuine VICIdial Software, and is being described as “VICIdial Powered”, “Powered by VICIdial” or “Based on VICIdial”.
4. A project that is being developed or sold that incorporated an altered version of VICIdial which is NOT considered Genuine VICIdial Software, and is being described as “developed from VICIdial software”, “a modification of VICIdial software”.
The Vicidial Group does reserve the right to review all usage of the VICIdial trademark on project forums and object to anyuse that it deems inappropriate or not within the limits placed on trademark use as specified in this policy.
Form of Use
This section only describes how the trademarks should be displayed when they are used. It is the Vicidial Group’s policy to recommend the use of the Word Form of the trademark because of the reasons described below.
When used properly, the trademark must be presented only in the exact spelling as used by the Vicidial Group in official distributed materials. The word may not be abbreviated, misspelled or altered in any other way. We prefer the mark to be made in all capital letters (e.g. VICIdial) But you may use the trademark only capitalizing the first letter or in the case of ViciDial, the V and the D in the word. Because of the use of the trademark in logos, the Vicidial Group strictly limits those uses to only official licensed VICIdial Partners under the terms of the VICIdial Partner Program.
Trademark Marking and Notice
Whenever a Trademark is used, attribution should be provided to the Vicidial Group, and the presentation of the Trademark should make it clear that the term is a trademark. Proper use under this standard will include:
Registration Notice. The use of the ® for the federally registered marks VICIdial. (E.g., you should present the mark as VICIdial®). Where the Trademark is used a number of times in one display or printed item and it would be undesirable to use the ® in each and every appearance of the Trademark, it is sufficient to limit use of the ® symbol to only
(a) the first appearance of the Trademark in the material, and
(b) the most prominent appearance of the Trademark in the material.
Attribution. The fact that the Trademarks are owned by the Vicidial Group should be clearly stated. This may be done by placing in a footer a notice, such as “VICIdial is a registered trademark of the Vicidial Group” Where a footer is not appropriate, such as for use in pathnames and for presentations within operational software displays, the attribution may be placed in product documentation and README files.