Trademark and Brand Guidelines – Microsoft

Trademark and Brand Guidelines – Microsoft

 
Microsoft is grateful for the trust that people place in our products, services, and experiences. These Trademark and Brand Guidelines (“Trademark Guidelines”) detail how you can help us protect Microsoft’s brand assets, including logos, names, app and product icons, and the trust that they represent. We have created these Trademark Guidelines to help clarify proper usage of our brand assets. Microsoft reserves the right to take action as necessary to protect them and, as a result, protect its customers and the public.
 
Microsoft’s brand assets—including the Microsoft Trademarks (PDF) (as updated from time to time), logos, icons, designs, trade dress, fonts, names of Microsoft software, products, services, sounds, emojis, and any other brand features and elements, whether registered or unregistered (“Brand Assets”)—are proprietary assets owned exclusively by Microsoft and its group of companies. These Trademark Guidelines, which may be updated from time to time, detail how our Brand Assets can be used under specific circumstances. To help illustrate use cases, Contoso is used as the fictitious partner brand. Many uses, including our logos, app and product icons, and other designs, will require a license first. Unless you have an express license from Microsoft, these Trademark Guidelines will exclusively govern your use of our Brand Assets.

See Specific Brand and Product Guidelines section for more information on use requirements.
These include logo lockups for flagship offerings, which are offerings that are aligned to and signal Microsoft’s long-term strategic intent. They include Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Surface, among others. See Specific Brand and Product Guidelines for more information.
These include app icons for products such as Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Azure, and others. See Specific Brand and Product Guidelines section for more information.
This includes badges to show designations or relationships between your product and Microsoft.

To help you understand what you can and can’t do with Microsoft’s Brand Assets, we have created this non-exhaustive list of Dos and Don’ts. In general, wordmarks can be used to truthfully convey information about your product or service, as long as customers and the public will not be confused into believing Microsoft is affiliated with or endorses your product or service. However, our logos, app and product icons, illustrations, photographs, videos, and designs can never be used without an express license. Please review these additional tips to better understand how you can more clearly communicate the role that our Brand Assets convey in your communications.

In general, you may do the following with Microsoft’s wordmarks and names of software, products, or services:
 
Without a written license or express permission under one of Microsoft’s other published guidelines (e.g., Specific Brand and Product Guidelines below), don’t do the following:

 
Without a license arrangement with Microsoft, everything about your app (including developer name, app name, logo, description, screenshots, and other app collateral) must be unique to you and free of Microsoft’s Brand Assets. The only exception is that you may truthfully state whether your app is compatible or interoperable with a Microsoft product or service within the text description about your app. If your app is integrated with a Microsoft technology, follow the guidelines for partner-led marketing under the Resources section below.
You may not use Microsoft’s Brand Assets in a manner that implies Microsoft published, developed, endorsed, is affiliated with, or is otherwise connected with your app. Furthermore, Microsoft’s logos, designs, and icons can never be used as your app icon and can only be used in your app advertisements with a license agreement in place.
 

 
Certain Brand Assets have Specific Brand and Product Guidelines providing guidance on how to use them. Several of these Specific Brand and Product Guidelines are published below and others may be provided to you by your relevant Microsoft contact in the context of your relationship with Microsoft. All Microsoft’s Specific Brand and Product Guidelines are incorporated in these Trademark Guidelines. If you are a partner integrating your product, service, or solution with a Microsoft technology including but not limited to Microsoft 365, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Dynamics 365, visit the guidelines for partner-led marketing for more detailed information.

 
Visit Use of Microsoft copyrighted content to learn how to use photography, box shots, and screenshots.
 
 

 
Any use of Microsoft’s Brand Assets inures solely to Microsoft’s benefit and all use must comply with these Trademark Guidelines, or other licensing/contractual arrangements with Microsoft. Third parties, including licensees, may never claim ownership rights in Microsoft’s Brand Assets, or brands that are confusingly similar to Microsoft’s Brand Assets, in any manner, including without limitation as a trademark, service mark, company name or designation, domain name, social media profile/handle, or in any other manner.
 
Microsoft expressly reserves the right in its sole discretion to terminate, revoke, modify, or otherwise change permission to use its Brand Assets at any time and expressly reserves the right to object to any use or misuse of its Brand Assets in any jurisdiction worldwide.
 
 

 
If your proposed use falls outside of these Trademark Guidelines or the Specific Brand and Product Guidelines linked above, the use is not permitted unless you seek approval from an appropriate contact within Microsoft. If you have a question, please contact your legal counsel, Microsoft business contact, or [email protected].
 
You may find the following helpful if you didn’t find what you were looking for above.
Innovation is at the heart of Microsoft as a company.

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