
Docker having its lawyers taking down the Docker font awesome icon - tilt
https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/18264#issuecomment-162934157
======
jamescun
This makes sense from a trademark perspective, you either protect it or lose
it.

However I think, particularly for a project that supposedly highly values open
source, to go straight to lawyers is a very poor show on Docker Inc's part. An
email referring to their guidelines or even chiming in on the project/issue
thread on GitHub would probably have sufficed and come across much better from
a PR perspective.

I hope this serves as a warning to others regarding exactly what kind of
company Docker Inc is.

~~~
Someone1234
I am guessing the lawyer doesn't expect a lot of people to fight this (since
few have the money to burn) but realistically the use of the Docker logo is
likely nominative fair use[0].

> by which a person may use the trademark of another as a reference to
> describe the other product, or to compare it to their own.

Since the Docker logo is being used to describe or in reference to Docker, it
is likely a nominative defense could work.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use)

~~~
phonon
I don't think that's the issue. The issue is that FA designed their own "take"
on the docker icon, which is different than the one docker uses. Your rights
to manipulate someone else's trademarked logo are much more limited.

~~~
meesterdude
you might be right, but there is a lot of creativity out there surrounding
logo manipulation. i've seen many variations of twitter, facebook, etc; to fit
a given design.

IANAL, but if i was running a company and people were using their own takes on
my logo to reference my product, I would be flattered more than anything. If
they were using it as their own, I would certainly have a problem with that. I
was under the impression that it was the latter that companies would need to
go after in trademark abuse. Going after the former feels... needlessly
abrassive, and can turn off formerly hard-won, die-hard users.

~~~
phonon
All those companies have very strict branding guidelines actually. I ran into
this when designing a site for a corporate customer, we had to follow all the
branding/logo guidelines in the little social "connect to us" section.
[https://about.twitter.com/company/brand-
assets](https://about.twitter.com/company/brand-assets)
[https://www.facebookbrand.com/dos-donts](https://www.facebookbrand.com/dos-
donts)
[https://brand.linkedin.com/policies](https://brand.linkedin.com/policies)
[https://developers.google.com/+/branding-
guidelines?hl=en](https://developers.google.com/+/branding-guidelines?hl=en)
etc.

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mintone
It sounds very much like Docker don't an unauthorised interpretation of their
logo floating around. They do actually have a small icon which is used for
their blog link at the foot of all Docker pages:
[https://docker.com/sites/all/themes/docker/assets/images/soc...](https://docker.com/sites/all/themes/docker/assets/images/social/docker-
blog-24.png)

~~~
nucleardog
That image isn't allowed to be used outside of Docker. FTA -
[https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/18264#issuecomment-1...](https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/18264#issuecomment-159954856)

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draw_down
They should replace it with a penis.

