Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines

Foursquare®, Swarm™, 4SQ® and Check-in™ and certain graphics, logos, badges, designs, page headers, button icons, and scripts, are trademarks, service marks and trade dress of Foursquare Labs, Inc. (“Foursquare”) in the U.S. and other countries, (the “Foursquare Marks”). We support and encourage ideas, services, and tools that utilize and supplement the Foursquare® services. However, we are quite serious about protecting our reputation and brand identity. To help us achieve this goal, you must follow these guidelines.

Why Must Foursquare Protect its Marks?

Foursquare must be to able assure the public that only the products and services offered, sponsored, or endorsed by Foursquare actually bear the Foursquare Marks. Trademark law requires that we not only protect against improper use of the Foursquare Marks, but also protect against use of confusingly similar marks.


General Guidelines for Using the Foursquare Marks.

In order for you to help us protect our Foursquare Marks, we ask the following:

The Dos.

  1. You may of course use the Foursquare Marks to refer to Foursquare Labs, Inc., our application, services provided by us, the Foursquare.com website, and our other offerings. However, we ask that you do so in a way that does not improperly suggest an affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement of your website, domain name, products or services by Foursquare.
  2. Always distinguish the Foursquare Marks from surrounding text by capitalizing, italicizing, or using a different font for Foursquare Marks.
  3. Always follow your use of our Foursquare Marks with the ™ or ® symbol, as applicable, in superscript.
  4. Always use the Foursquare Marks in sentences as adjectives, such as the Foursquare® website, or Foursquare® service, as opposed to as a noun or verb.

The Do Nots.

  1. Do not incorporate our Foursquare Marks or any other confusingly similar marks into your domain names, screen names, website names, or trademarks.
  2. Do not alter or modify the Foursquare Marks, including adding other terms to the Foursquare Marks to create new words or changing a single element of the Foursquare Marks.
  3. Do not use the Foursquare Marks as part of a name of a product or service of a company other than Foursquare, except as otherwise expressly provided in a written agreement by Foursquare.
  4. Do not use the Foursquare Marks in a modified form, including an abbreviated form or in the plural or possessive form.
  5. Do not use the Foursquare Marks in any manner that merges the Foursquare Marks with other words, symbols, or numbers, either as one word or used as a modifier (with a hyphen).
  6. Do not use or display the Foursquare Marks in a way that implies a relationship or affiliation with, sponsorship, or endorsement by Foursquare.
  7. Do not use any trademarks, service marks, trade dress, designs or logos that are confusingly similar to the Foursquare Marks or the look and feel of the Foursquare® application or website.
  8. Do not use our Foursquare Marks in any manner that otherwise violates applicable law or regulation.

Appearance

You shall ensure that the presentation of the Foursquare Marks shall be consistent with Foursquare’s own use of the Foursquare Marks in comparable media. From time to time, Foursquare may provide you with guidelines for the size, typeface, colors and other graphic characteristics of the Foursquare Marks, which, upon delivery to you, shall be deemed to be incorporated into these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines.

Specific Guidelines for Using the Foursquare Marks.

Foursquare® Merchandise
You may not use the Foursquare Marks on any merchandise without our permission.

Guidelines if you use the Foursquare® API in your application or service:
If you use our API in your application or service, we require the following:

You Must

  1. Read and follow these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines.
  2. If your application or service displays any Foursquare Marks associated with Foursquare® features and functionalities made available through the API, prominently include the statement:
  3. “This [application/service] uses the Foursquare® application programming interface but is not endorsed or certified by Foursquare Labs, Inc. All of the Foursquare® logos (including all badges) and trademarks displayed on this [application/service] are the property of Foursquare Labs, Inc.”

Powered by Foursquare® logo license

If you use our API in your application or service you MAY display one of our powered by Foursquare® logos in connection with your application or service, including on your website, all mobile application stores, and on your application. Use our powered by Foursquare® logo does not in any way signify that your application or service is endorsed or certified by Foursquare. Subject to full compliance with the Foursquare API Terms of Use, and these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines, Foursquare hereby grants to you a limited, personal, non-sublicenseable, non-transferable, nonexclusive, revocable license to use our powered by Foursquare® logo in connection with your application or service, including on your website, all mobile application stores, and on your application.

Approved Terms license

Subject to full compliance with the Foursquare API Terms of Use and these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines, notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, Foursquare hereby may, at its discretion, grant to you a limited, personal, non-sublicenseable, non-transferable, nonexclusive, revocable license to use either “4SQ” or the term “four”, “square”, “check”, or other similar term pre-approved by Foursquare (together, “Approved Terms”) as incorporated in your trademark, website name, and domain name of your choice in connection with the promotion and distribution of your application or services utilizing our API or otherwise related to our services. If we grant you such a license, you agree that:

  1. you MUST include prominent display of one of our powered by Foursquare® logos in connection with your application or service, including on your website, all mobile application stores, and on your application;
    Foursquare is the sole owner of the Foursquare Marks and Approved Terms and 2. you will not challenge our ownership, use, or validity of the Foursquare Marks or Approved Terms or assist any third party in doing so, by any act or omission that will in any way impair our rights to the Foursquare Marks and Approved Terms;
  2. you will not acquire any rights in the Foursquare Marks and Approved Terms by virtue of any use of any Approved Term and you will refrain from filing any application to register any trademarks incorporating an Approved Term or any other mark confusingly similar to any Foursquare Marks in connection with Foursquare, its services, or use of its API;
  3. your use of an Approved Term, including all goodwill that results therefrom, will inure to the sole benefit of Foursquare; and
  4. Foursquare may terminate this license at any time for any reason or no reason and upon termination of this license you will immediately cease use of all Approved Terms in connection with any Foursquare® related services or information.

If you do not follow these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines, we reserve the right to discontinue providing our API to you.

For more information on the use of the Foursquare Marks if you use the API, please see: Trademark Guidelines 101 for Developers.

Other

If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use the Foursquare Marks. To help us address future branding concerns, we may modify these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines from time to time without notice to you. You are responsible for complying with any modified terms and therefore review and become familiar with any modifications. If you do not comply with these Trademark and Brand Feature Guidelines, you do not have any right to use the Foursquare Marks.