Trademark Guidelines/Fair-Use Policy for Julia name/logo

We’re in the process of applying for a trademark on the Julia name and sorting out related issues. It’s a bit complicated because the first entity to do business using a name is the one that can apply for a trademark in the US, which means that Julia Computing has to apply for the trademark and then transfer ownership to a foundation – which could be NumFocus or perhaps a standalone Julia Foundation which would exist primarily for the purpose of owning Julia community IP. The foundation would then own the trademark and grant Julia Computing exclusive rights to certain sub-trademarks of the Julia name, which are specifically its products. The foundation would also be able to grant sub-trademarks for things like your JADE product. We’ll get this sorted out in the next few months, and presumably your project won’t be commercial until then.

The Julia logo is a different story since that is protected by copyright (perhaps in addition to trademark) and I personally own this copyright as the original creator of the Julia logo. You have my permission to use the Julia logo and create works derived from it for non-commercial purposes. More broadly, we should figure out a creative commons license that’s appropriate for the Julia logo but still allows us to protect the project appropriately. Once the Julia Foundation (maybe NumFocus) exists and has the trademark, we can also transfer copyright of the logo there.

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