H5P Trademark and Logo Policy

Publication date: 24.05.2018

The main goal for this policy is to protect the funding of H5P and ensure that H5P is associated with the right things:

  • Quality
  • Openness and transparency
  • Sharing and reusing
  • A supporting community that helps every member thrive

We also want to make sure that concepts within the H5P community is recognizable. We should know what to expect from an H5P Conference or an H5P Meetup.

The founders of H5P - H5P Group AS - owns the trademarks for the H5P logo and the word H5P. This usage policy has been created to give guidance on the various use cases of the H5P trademarks. 

In general, H5P Group AS wants to make it easy for anyone to use the H5P trademarks for activities that support and encourage the growth of the H5P community while also preventing use that may harm H5P.  

1. Background information

The H5P logo – i.e. the mark H5P, where the background and the number 5 is of the same color - and the word "H5P" are trademarked in many countries in the world. The trademarks are owned by the Norwegian company H5P Group AS. The logo and word are trademarked to protect the values being created in the H5P community by H5P Group and others, as well as protecting H5P Group’s business model which is designed to support the vision of the H5P community.

According to law H5P Group is obligated to protect our trademarks and make sure that the logo, the word or confusingly similar logos and words are not used by third parties without a license to do so.

Although you are encouraged to use the H5P trademark for your own purposes, you must first obtain a license. 

There are several ways to get a license to use the H5P trademark. 

  1. You can obtain a license automatically for the H5P trademark, without having to complete or receive any documents. This only applies to a limited number of non-commercial activities, provided you follow the rules of use described below.
  2. You may contact H5P Group to get a license to use the H5P trademark.
  3. Not all scenarios are covered by this policy. If you have doubts whether a specific rule applies, you must contact H5P Group to seek approval for your use of the H5P trademark.

2. Rules of use – for automatic approval

In general, you can use the H5P trademark for non-commercial activities that follow the rules of conduct with an exclusive purpose of community building. 

Community building purpose means that the purpose of the activity must be to extend or improve the H5P software, to encourage the proliferation and use of H5P, or to provide a service to the H5P community. 

Exclusive means that all income from the activity is used for the same community building purpose. 

Non-commercial means that a non-profit organization with a community building purpose can charge for services or product, provided that the entirety of the profits generated goes to community building purposes. Commercial organization will only get automatic license to free and open access community building activities. 

Trademark can not be used to compete with the trademark owner's services
The H5P trademark cannot be used to compete with the following community services offered by the trademark owner:

  • The H5P Hub
  • The H5P SaaS (H5P.com)

This rule applies even if the trademark owner’s service and/or the competing service is non-commercial. It also applies even if the competing service otherwise satisfies some of the below rules for automatic approval.

Trademark must not be used to give the impression of an official or endorsed service or product
The H5P trademark cannot be used in combinations that give the impression that it is an official or endorsed site, or that the content or service is certified, approved or endorsed by H5P or H5P Group.

A - Activities approved for automatic license 

1. Name of national or international non-profit organizations, like user groups, forums and similar, clearly limiting in its geography and clearly stating its purpose. Commercial organizations cannot use the H5P trademark in their name. 

Automatically approved:

  • “The Dutch User-group for H5P”
  • “The German H5P forum”
  • “H5P user network - Australia”

Not approved:

  • “The H5P user-group” (No geographic limitation)
  • “The American H5P foundation” (Not clearly stating purpose, restricted word)
  • “H5P Services Inc.” (Commercial organization, restricted word)
  • “H5P Consulting Ltd.” (Commercial organization)

2. Open access magazines, journals, tutorials, books and courses with a community building purpose, clearly stating the author and source of the information, and not suggesting endorsements by H5P Group or the H5P community.

Automatically approved:

  • “Acmes monthly H5P magazine”
  • “Build better courses in H5P - by John Doe”
  • “American H5P users journal”
  • “H5P 101, taught at Acmes University”
  • “Acmes H5P Webinar”
  • “H5P for dummies – by Acmes University” 

Not approved:

  • “The H5P journal” (No source, suggests endorsement)
  • “Acmes certified instructional designer training” (restricted word)

3. Open access workshops, hackathons, meetings or gathering with a community building purpose, clearly stating the organizer or limitations in geography or time. 

Automatically approved:

  • “Annual meeting – H5P Australia”
  • “H5P Hackathon – London 2017”
  • “H5P Gathering Melbourne”
  • “Workshop, Dutch user group for H5P” 

Not approved:

  • “H5P Con Dubai 2017” (restricted word)
  • “H5P Meetup Washington 2017 (restricted word, additional rules apply, see below)
  • “H5P Hackathon” (No limitations in geography and time)

We encourage organizations to arrange H5P Meetups. These should be open to everyone, and arranged in a way that is in line with the values and vision of H5P. To be allowed to call an event an “H5P Meetup” you must register the meetup via the contact form, the meetup must be non-commercial and cannot be used to promote any product or service unless they are free and H5P related. You will get an approval or rejection on your application. Most applications will be approved and your meetup will also be promoted on H5P.org, on H5P social media accounts and perhaps also in the H5P newsletter.

4. The H5P trademark cannot be used alone in a top-level domain. The H5P trademark can be used in a domain name, in combination with other text, exclusively for non-commercial, non-generic, community building purposes, clearly stating the author/owner/source of the webpage or limitations in geography or time. 

Automatically approved:

  • “h5pusergroupUSA.org”
  • “h5p.terrisblog.com”
  • “H5Pbootcamp-UK2017.com “
  • “H5Pmeeting2017.nl”
  • “H5PunofficialFAQ.acme.org”
  • “H5Pdesigns.acme.org”

Not approved:

  • “h5pbootcamp.com” (No source, no limitation, suggest endorsement)
  • “H5POfficialFAQ.org (No source, no limitation, suggest endorsement)
  • “H5Psupport.de” (Restricted words, generic)
  • “H5Pmerchandise.com” (commercial purpose, no source, generic)
  • “H5Padministration.info” or ”H5Pdesigns.nl” (generic, no source)
  • “H5P.info” or “H5P.tv” (Top level domain, suggest endorsement, generic)

5. The H5P trademark can be used as a main identifier in open source code plugin, module, platform or content type, only when the name clearly states the author or the origin of the code. You can, however, use the H5P trademark in a descriptive text (secondary identifier) to an open source software.  The H5P trademark can be used freely in functions, procedures, variable names and comments in source code or design documents. 

Automatically approved:

  • “Acmes H5P interactive Quiz”
  • “John’s H5P Learning path”
  • “Learning path – created with H5P”
  • “123 Learning with H5P inside”

Not approved:

  •  “H5P interactive Quiz” (No author, suggests endorsement)
  • “H5P with 123 Learning inside” (Main identifier)

6. You will not get an automatic license if you are planning one of the following:

  • Any commercial activities with a profit purpose.
  • Any activity that suggests endorsement by H5P Group or the H5P community.
  • Generic activities, not restricted in scope, time or geography. 
  • Any activity that does not follow the rules of conduct. 

B – Rules of conduct for automatic license

  1. Any use of the H5P trademark implies acceptance of this policy.
  2. The H5P trademark cannot be altered. Individuals who are part of the H5P Ambassador program are allowed to make use of the altered "H5P Ambassador" graphics as provided by H5P Group and following the rules of use otherwise set out in this trademark policy for as long as they are officially H5P Ambassadors. They must stop using such trademarks if they are no longer part of the H5P Ambassador program.
  3. The H5P trademark cannot be used for illegal, defamatory or humiliating purposes or used in a way that will impact the H5P software, the H5P community or H5P Group in a negative way.
  4. The H5P trademark must only be used for non-commercial activities with an exclusively purpose of community building.
  5. The H5P trademark cannot be used to compete with existing H5P Group or H5P community services, i.e. the trademark and logo cannot be used in combination with all representations, in all languages, of the words “SaaS”, “Hosting”, “Service”, “Store”, “Hub”, “Conference”, “Con”, “Convention”, “Meetup”, “Academy”, “Communicate”, “Communication”.
  6. The H5P trademark cannot be used in combinations that give the impression that it is an official or endorsed site, or that the content or service is certified, approved or endorsed by H5P Group, i.e. the trademark and logo cannot be used in combination with all representations, in all languages, of the words “Official”, “Certified”, “Association”, “Foundation”, “Core”, “Partner”, “Support”, “Supporter” and “Community”, or in any other way compete with the trademark owner's services like H5P.com and the upcoming H5P Content Hub.
  7. The H5P trademark should not be used in generic ways or suggest endorsement by H5P Group or the H5P community. The H5P trademark should be used so that there is no confusion as to the author, source, owner or organizer of a group, forum, product, service or activity.
  8. The H5P trademark cannot be used as part of another registered trademark.  

C – Legal clarifications for automatic license

  1. The H5P trademark is owned by H5P Group AS, organization NO 912 282 910.
  2. Any license granted under this policy can be terminated within a sixty (60) days prior written notice. If you are a first-time offender, you may be granted forty-five (45) days from the date of notice to cure the breach.
  3. This policy may be changed at any time, and will enter into force sixty (60) days after publication on the website h5p.org. Any license granted before an update will be revoked after a grace period of six (6) months from the date of publication.
  4. The license is non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable and revocable at any time. 
  5. If any provisions of this policy should be found by any court or administrative body of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, this should not affect the other provisions of this policy which shall remain in full force and effect.
  6. All disputes in connection with this policy or any permission granted by it will be submitted to the Nord-Troms tingrett, Norway.