The OpenID trademark and logo: who owns them today

Please note: this page explains the history and the present position in general terms. openideurope.eu is an independent guide. It has no connection to the OpenID Foundation or to the former OpenID Europe Foundation, it does not issue trademark rules and nothing here is legal advice.

If you landed here looking for the old “OpenID Europe Trademark and Logo Policy”: that document was a draft published in 2008 by a European association, and it no longer governs anything. The short answer to the question in the title is that the OpenID Foundation looks after the OpenID name and logo today.

A name that belonged to the community first

OpenID began in 2005 as a community protocol. The name came with the project, and so did the logo, which a community member drew that year and meant to hand over to an OpenID organisation once one existed. Because no legal body stood behind the project, early trademark filings were made by whoever had a company at hand. In the United States the first registration was held by a software company that had worked on a related login protocol. In June 2007 the OpenID Foundation was formed as a US non-profit to take over the stewardship of the technology, and in March 2008 that US trademark was assigned to it. This sequence is given in reference sources such as Wikipedia; we could not confirm it from the Foundation’s own trademark page.

The European draft policy of 2008

In Europe, a separate Belgian association, the OpenID Europe Foundation, took a different route. Reference sources report that it held a European registration from August 2007. Its website published a long “Trademark and Logo Policy”, marked as a draft that “may change”, and listed registrations in some thirty countries through the EU trade mark office and the international (WIPO) system. We do not reproduce the registration numbers because we could not confirm their present status, and we describe only the structure of the draft:

• Fair, descriptive use without a licence: referring to OpenID in text, as long as the casing was correct (“OpenID”, not “Open ID”) and the use did not suggest endorsement.
• Domain names: using “openid” in a domain required written permission from the association.
• The logo: allowed if it was not used in a harmful way, was not altered, carried the trademark symbol and linked back to the association’s site for European users or to openid.net for everyone else.
• Licensed use: any use of the name in a company, product or service name needed a written licence.
• Style tips: treat the mark as an adjective (“OpenID protocol”), never as a verb, plural or possessive.

That draft reflected a 2008 view in which a European body managed European rights. It was a draft from one association, never an official rule of the standards body, and the 2008 world of “Sign in with OpenID” buttons has largely gone.

What applies today

The OpenID Foundation maintains the OpenID name and logo and runs a certification programme with an “OpenID Certified” mark for implementations that pass its conformance tests. Its pages are the place to read current terms: see the OpenID Foundation and its certification page. We could not open the Foundation’s separate trademark page when preparing this article, so please read it directly and do not rely on our summary for details.

Two caveats matter for Europe. First, trademarks are territorial: what is registered in the United States does not automatically cover an EU country. Whether the European registrations reported for 2007 are still in force, and in whose name, should be checked in the EUIPO and national registers. Second, the old European draft is not a safe guide to current rules. When it and the Foundation’s pages differ, follow the Foundation, or take proper legal advice.

How to check registrations yourself

If you need certainty about a mark in a particular country, use the official registers rather than any website summary, including this one. The EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) runs a public search tool for EU trade marks, and its TMview service combines the databases of many national offices. The World Intellectual Property Organization offers a global brand database for international registrations, and national offices, such as the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property or the Austrian Patent Office, publish their own registers. Search by the word “OpenID”, then look at the owner, the goods and services classes and the status. A registration can lapse, be assigned or be limited, which is why a reported fact from 2007 or 2008 may no longer be true.

What website operators should consider

This is a practical checklist, not legal advice:

1. Read the current official guidance before using an OpenID logo or name in your product. Do not copy permissions from the 2008 draft.
2. Check what you actually offer. Most “Sign in with …” buttons today use OpenID Connect, a different protocol from the retired OpenID 2.0. Provider buttons, such as those described in Sign in with Google and Apple, follow the provider’s own brand rules, not the OpenID logo.
3. Do not imply certification unless your product has been certified and you may use the mark.
4. Be careful with names and domains. Putting “OpenID” into a product or domain name can cause confusion about affiliation. That is the reason this site states clearly that it is independent.
5. Keep attribution honest. Say that a product supports a standard rather than that it is endorsed by a standards body.

A note on this website’s name

The domain openideurope.eu dates from the 2007 to 2009 community described above. The website today is a separate, independent guide. It does not use the OpenID logo, does not claim any mark, and does not offer licences or permissions. Questions about the use of OpenID branding should go to the OpenID Foundation or to a qualified trade mark lawyer, not to us.

Where to read next

The ownership story is one thread of a longer history. See the OpenID timeline for the dates, What was the OpenID Europe Foundation? for the association behind the draft and From OpenID to OpenID Connect for how the name lives on in current standards.