Trademark Guidelines

Basic Introduction

Trademarks are used to identify the source of goods and services in the market. Trademark law is best understood as consumer protection law, since it enables consumers of products to know the source of the products they purchase and allows them to distinguish those products from the products of other vendors. This is important in order to ensure that consumers are not fooled into purchasing a product of one company while believing it is a product of another company.

For instance, Heinz® ketchup is a well-known brand of ketchup. If Jones Company decided to make its own ketchup, and was able to market it as Heinz® ketchup, Jones Company would profit in the sale of its ketchup from the customer goodwill established by the owner of the well-known Heinz® brand. Although that might be good for Jones Company, it could be bad for the consumers who purchased the Jones Company ketchup, believing that it was Heinz® ketchup. Such trademark use would be impermissible under applicable law. This is true even though the Jones Company ketchup contains exactly the same ingredients as the Heinz® ketchup.

A similar situation arises with the trademarks owned by Red Hat. Many consumers have come to trust the Red Hat® branded products and services, and look for a Red Hat brand, including when they obtain our open source products. As a result, consumers who obtain products that are labeled or some close variation (see "Use of Trademark") believe that they are the official products of the . Consumers often expect that such products will contain features that are available only from the . In order to protect consumers, Red Hat has an obligation to ensure that its trademarks are not used to identify the products of other companies or used in any other manner which states or implies an association or sponsorship by Red Hat of other companies' products.