
June 20, 2007
The Eclipse Foundation and Eclipse projects have created a number of trademarks and logos to identify the Eclipse community and individual Eclipse projects. In addition to the ‘Eclipse’ trademark, the Eclipse Foundation has introduced six trademarks and logos: Eclipse Foundation Member, EclipseCon, Built on Eclipse, Eclipse Ready, Eclipse Incubation and Eclipse Proposals. Individual Eclipse projects have also introduced unique project names, that are considered trademarks, and logos. This document outlines the policy and guidelines of the Eclipse Foundation in regards to these trademarks and logos.
Our goals in establishing these guidelines are pretty simple:
- The Eclipse trademarks are a symbol of the quality and community support that people have come to associate with Eclipse. To ensure that the Eclipse trademarks continue to serve these functions, we need to keep some element of control over their use. Along these lines, we want to ensure that the use of our marks not likely to lead to confusion with other marks. By this we mean that people should be able to tell when something is from the Eclipse Foundation or one of the Eclipse projects. Also, use of our marks should not be in a disparaging manner because we prefer that our marks not be used to be rude about the Eclipse technology, the Eclipse Foundation, its projects, or its Members.
- We want to encourage our logos to be used in approved ways. So, for example, we want to make it as simple as legally possible for our Members to use the “Eclipse Foundation Member” mark. If you want to use an Eclipse Foundation logo in a way not explicitly explained in these Guidelines, then ask us by sending an email to license@eclipse.org.
The Eclipse Foundation Member logo is to identify those organizations and individuals that are official members of the Eclipse Foundation, including 1) Strategic Members, 2) Add-in Provider, 3) Associate, and 4) Committer Members. Only official members of the Eclipse Foundation are authorized to use this logo.
The "Built on Eclipse" trademark is used to identify a product that includes the core Eclipse Platform, specifically the runtime, SWT, JFace, and Generic Workbench components. This type of product is able to run standalone with no prerequisites of other Eclipse components.
The "Eclipse Ready" trademark and logo is used to identify a product that is packaged as an Eclipse feature or plug-in and must be added to an Eclipse platform product. This type of product does not run standalone.
The Eclipse Incubation and Eclipse Proposals Trademarks and Logos are for use exclusively by the Eclipse Foundation and the Eclipse projects. Only the Eclipse Foundation and its projects are authorized to use these trademarks and logos. All other use -- even by Eclipse Foundation Members -- is prohibited.
The Eclipse Project Naming Policy allows for Eclipse projects to have a descriptive name, optional nickname and acronym. These names, ex. Higgins, and acronyms, ex. BIRT, can be become effective identifiers of certain technologies, therefore it is important to establish proper usage guidelines. All project names, nicknames and acronyms are, to the extent possible, trademarks of the Eclipse Foundation and should be identified as such. (Please see proper notice and attribution below.)
Note: The Eclipse Foundation holds the trademarks for the project names and logos on behalf of, and for the benefit of, the Eclipse projects. The individual projects are not separate legal entities and thus not able to hold trademarks individually. The Eclipse Foundation is a legal entity and thus holds the trademarks on behalf of the projects.
The appropriate trademark symbol (i.e. TM) should appear at least with the first use of the Eclipse Foundation trademarks and all occurrence of the Eclipse logo.
When you use an Eclipse Foundation trademark or logo you should include a statement attributing the trademark to the Eclipse Foundation, Inc. For example, ‘Eclipse, Built on Eclipse and Eclipse Ready, BIRT, Higgins are trademarks of Eclipse Foundation, Inc.’