Can You Use Another Company's Logo on Your Website?

Can You Use Another Company's Logo on Your Website?

US trademark law lets you refer to another company truthfully, but it bars uses likely to confuse visitors about "affiliation, connection, or association" or "sponsorship, or approval" (15 U.S.C. 1125(a)). Writing the name is usually safe. The logo is different: Apple, Microsoft, Google and Slack all restrict logo use to licensees, partners or their own badge programs, so get permission or use the official badge.

The clearest court ruling on the difference between a name and a logo involves a car broker. In Toyota Motor Sales v. Tabari (9th Cir. 2010), two brokers who helped customers buy Lexus cars ran websites at buy-a-lexus.com and buyorleaselexus.com. The Ninth Circuit threw out an injunction that barred them from using the word Lexus, treating its use to say what they sold as a likely nominative fair use, and sent the case back. It agreed with Toyota on one point only: the stylized Lexus mark and the "L" logo on the site were more than needed, because "the Tabaris could adequately communicate their message without using the visual trappings of the Lexus brand."

Two federal provisions, one shared test: would visitors assume a link?

Most logo disputes on a website run through two sections of the Lanham Act, the federal trademark statute in Title 15 of the U.S. Code.

Section 1114 covers registered marks. It applies to anyone who, "without the consent of the registrant," uses "any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services" where "such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive." A company logo registered at the USPTO falls squarely under it.

Section 1125(a) covers everything else, registered or not. Its first branch reaches any word, name, symbol or device used in commerce that "is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person." Its second branch is about false advertising: commercial advertising that "misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities." That second branch is the one comparison pages need to watch, and it comes up again below.

Read side by side, the two sections ask the same thing about a logo on your homepage. Would a reasonable visitor think the other company made, sponsors, approves of or partners with you? If yes, the use is a problem whatever your intent. If no, the use is usually lawful even without permission. That is why the same logo can be fine in one spot on a page and a problem in another.

A third provision is narrower than people expect. Section 1125(c) protects famous marks against "dilution," and its exclusions list "any fair use, including a nominative or descriptive fair use," including "advertising or promotion that permits consumers to compare goods or services" and "identifying and parodying, criticizing, or commenting upon the famous mark owner." That is where section 1125 itself names nominative fair use, and the exclusion applies to dilution claims about famous marks. It is not a general defence to an infringement claim under 1114 or 1125(a); for those, the doctrine comes from the courts. Section 1115(b)(4) is different again: it protects using a term "descriptive of" your own goods, which is descriptive fair use, not a reference to someone else.

One more layer sits under the trademark. Many logos are also copyrighted artwork, so copying the image file can raise a copyright question separate from any confusion. Our guide to copyright versus trademark for logos explains which logos qualify for copyright and which are too simple to.

All of this describes US federal law and company terms as published when we checked them in October 2026. Use it to plan a page; whether one specific use on your site is lawful is a question for a lawyer, and other countries handle trademark references differently.

Nominative fair use in the Ninth Circuit: the three-part test

Courts call it nominative use when you use a company's mark to name that company or its product, rather than to name your own. The Ninth Circuit's test comes from New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing (9th Cir. 1992), a case about newspapers that used the band's name in a reader survey. The Tabari opinion restates the test as three questions:

1. Is the product "readily identifiable" without use of the mark?
2. Did the defendant use more of the mark than necessary?
3. Did the defendant falsely suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder?

Tabari adds four points that matter for website owners.

• A fair nominative use is not infringement. The opinion says that if the use "satisfies the three-factor New Kids test, it doesn't infringe," and that on remand Toyota had to carry the burden of showing the use was not nominative fair use.
• Logos are the classic way to use too much. Words such as a brand name are often necessary. A logo, a stylized wordmark or the brand's colours rarely are. The court said "Imagery, logos and other visual markers may be particularly significant in cyberspace, where anyone can convincingly recreate the look and feel of a luxury brand at minimal expense."
• A disclaimer helps but is not required. By trial, the Tabaris had removed the stylized mark and the "L" logo and added a large-font statement that they were "not an authorized Lexus dealer." The court called such a disclaimer "not required" but "relevant to the nominative fair use analysis." The opinion also notes that the New Kids newspapers had no disclaimer at all and still did not infringe.
• The fix is usually a change, not a ban. If a use fails some factors, the court said, a district court "may order defendants to modify their use of the mark so that all three factors are satisfied; it may not enjoin nominative use of the mark altogether."

That framework is Ninth Circuit law, which covers California, Washington and the other western states. Other federal circuits handle nominative use differently, some as a defence and some as factors folded into the ordinary confusion analysis, so the three-part test is a strong guide rather than a nationwide rule. It also lines up closely with what the companies themselves ask for, as their brand pages show.

Name in text versus logo: how the brand owners draw the line

Every brand page quoted below makes the same split. The word mark may be used to refer to the company truthfully. The logo needs a licence, a partnership or an official badge.

Apple. Apple's guidelines for third parties let developers use "Apple, Macintosh, iMac, or any other Apple word mark (but not the Apple Logo or other Apple-owned graphic symbol/logo)" in "a referential phrase" to describe compatibility, with conditions: the word mark is not part of your product name, it is used in a phrase "such as 'runs on,' 'for use with,' 'for,' or 'compatible with,'" it "appears less prominent than the product name," and the product really is compatible. The logo rule is flat: "You may not use the Apple Logo or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol, logo, or icon on or in connection with web sites, products, packaging, manuals, promotional/advertising materials, or for any other purpose except pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple, such as a reseller agreement."

Microsoft. Microsoft's Trademark and Brand Guidelines say "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." Then: "our logos, app and product icons, illustrations, photographs, videos, and designs can never be used without an express license." The list of don'ts repeats it as "Don't use Microsoft's logos, icons, or designs, in any manner."

Google. Google's brand resource page, in a Wayback copy saved December 23, 2024, said "You may use the Google name or one of our product names in plain text to indicate that your product or service integrates with, is designed for, or relates to a Google product or service." The Google logo was reserved: it "can only be used if you have an existing partnership or sponsorship and you've reached out to your Google contact to secure formal approval from the Google brand team." Google was the one company in this set that allowed product icons without a deal, within limits: "small depictions of our Google product icons for educational or informational purposes to indicate that your product or service integrates with" a Google product, without implying affiliation or endorsement. That page now redirects to Google's Partner Marketing Hub, which asks visitors to apply for access, so the 2024 wording is the latest public text available to quote.

Slack. Slack's brand terms open with "Most uses require a specific written license." The usage list says "You are entitled to say that your application is integrated with Slack or that you are a Slack Platform Partner if you have an app in the Slack Marketplace." The same list says "Don't use the Slack logo (with or without your company logo)," yet the page also links logo downloads and sets clear-space rules for the logo. The plain reading is that the logo files are for people Slack has licensed or approved, and that anyone else names Slack in text. If your use is in between, Slack says to contact it through help.slack.com.

Meta's brand resources page loads its rules in the browser and no text copy was available to quote, so it has no entry here. Check that page directly before placing a Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp mark.

What five brand pages say, side by side

None of the four companies gives a general permission to show its logo on a third-party website, and all four allow the name, in plain text, when the statement is true. Those two facts line up with the second Tabari question almost exactly: the name is what you need, and the logo is more.

Eight places a website shows someone else's logo

Check a page against it row by row, whether you are building it or auditing it. The "what decides it" column is our reading of the statute, the Tabari test and the brand pages above, not a rule any of them states in these words.

The table reflects one pattern. The more a logo works as decoration or social proof, the more it suggests a relationship, and the more permission matters. The more the logo is itself the subject being discussed, the more room there is.

Client logo walls: start with the contract, not the statute

A row of client logos under "Trusted by" is the most common use, and the one with the least legal cover from nominative fair use. The logos are not there to identify the clients in a sentence. They are there because a visitor will read them as recommendations. That puts the use close to the "sponsorship, or approval" language in 1125(a), and on the wrong side of the second and third Tabari questions.

Three practical points decide most cases before trademark law comes into it.

• Your agreement may already answer it. Many master services agreements and NDAs forbid naming the client in marketing without written consent. If yours does, the logo question is a contract question, and breaking it is a breach whether or not anyone is confused.
• The relationship has to be current or clearly past. A logo wall implies present clients. A company you worked for once in 2021 may object to appearing next to a "trusted by" headline in 2026. Label past work as past work.
• Permission in writing is quick to ask for. Most marketing teams answer a two-line request. The ask also tells you which logo file and colours they want used, which avoids the separate problem of an outdated mark.

For designers, the logo you designed for a client is a slightly different case: you are showing your own work, not claiming the client recommends you. The safest route is still to settle it in the contract. Our freelance design contract clauses guide covers the portfolio and promotional-rights clause, which is the right place to agree whether you may show the logo, when (usually after public launch) and whether the client can ask you to remove it.

Sample wording for a logo permission

This is sample wording for a client agreement or a short permission email. Adapt it to your situation, and have a lawyer look at it if the relationship is large.

Client grants Provider a non-exclusive, revocable permission to display Client's name and logo, as supplied by Client, on Provider's website and in sales materials to identify Client as a customer. Provider will not alter the logo, will not state or imply that Client endorses Provider beyond being a customer, and will remove the logo within 14 days of a written request.

Each phrase does a job. "As supplied by Client" fixes the artwork. "To identify Client as a customer" limits what the logo is allowed to say. "Not state or imply that Client endorses" keeps the wall from becoming a testimonial. We picked the 14-day removal window as an example; pick a period you can actually meet. Slack, for comparison, gives itself the right to ask you to stop using its brand assets and expects use to stop "in all cases no more than 7 days from the date of the request."

"As seen on" press bars

A row of newspaper and TV logos above the fold tells visitors that respected outlets vouch for you. Usually they did not; they wrote one article, or quoted a founder once. The outlet's logo is doing more than identifying the coverage, which is exactly the "more of the mark than necessary" concern in the second Tabari question.

Using the outlet's name to report true coverage is a much easier case. "Featured in an article in the Daily Example, March 2026," with a link to the piece, identifies the outlet, uses only the words needed and says what the relationship was. Visitors can click and judge the coverage themselves.

Before adding any press reference, check three things:

1. The coverage is real and about you. A paid placement, a sponsored post or a press release republished on a wire service is not the outlet covering you. Calling it "as seen on" misdescribes your own commercial activity, which is the false-advertising branch of 1125(a).
2. The reference matches what was said. If the outlet mentioned you in a list of 30 companies, "as seen on" overstates it. "Listed in" is accurate.
3. The outlet allows its logo. Some publishers license an "as featured in" badge; many do not. If there is no badge program and no written permission, use the name.

Integration, compatibility and app-store pages

Integration pages are where nominative use is strongest, because the whole point is to tell visitors which other products you work with. The first Tabari question is easily met: a visitor cannot know you integrate with Slack unless you say "Slack." The risk is in how much you show and whether the page looks like the other company's own.

The brand pages above give unusually concrete rules for this case.

• Apple wants a referential phrase ("runs on," "for use with," "for," "compatible with"), Apple's word less prominent than your product name, and a product that actually works with Apple's. For product images, it requires "an actual photograph of the genuine Apple product and not an artist's rendering," and express written permission to use any photograph Apple owns.
• Microsoft allows apps to "truthfully state whether your app is compatible or interoperable with a Microsoft product or service within the text description," and says to use its names "less prominently than your own brand or company name unless you have a strategic partnership agreement."
• Google, in the December 2024 copy, allowed small product icons for integrations, with instructions to keep them "a smaller, supporting element" and not to "lock up our product icon with your own logo/icon."
• Slack permits "integrated with Slack" for apps listed in the Slack Marketplace, and says that if it believes there is ambiguity it may ask you to state that your service is "not created by, affiliated with, or supported by" Slack, in text at least 15 pt.

The App Store badge, by the numbers

The App Store badge is the cleanest example of a logo you may show, because Apple licenses it to developers. The licence in Apple's marketing guidelines covers the badge "only in connection with Your applications that are available for download on the App Store" and "only while You are a member of the Apple Developer Program." The guidelines then set the layout rules:

If you are designing the buttons rather than the policy, 40 px is a height for the badge artwork itself. Our app icon sizes guide covers the separate pixel sizes for the icons inside a store listing, and the touch target size guide covers how big the tappable area around a badge should be on mobile.

Comparison pages and competitor tables

A page that compares your product with named competitors is lawful advertising in the United States when the claims are true. The dilution exclusion in 1125(c)(3)(A) names "advertising or promotion that permits consumers to compare goods or services," and the Tabari reasoning supports naming a competitor because there is no other way to tell visitors who you are compared with.

The real exposure on comparison pages is accuracy, not the name. Section 1125(a)(1)(B) makes it actionable to misrepresent "another person's goods, services, or commercial activities" in commercial advertising. Old prices, retired plans, features the competitor added since you wrote the page, or a "no" where the honest answer is "on the enterprise plan only" are the usual ways a comparison page drifts into that branch.

Logos add little to a comparison table and some risk. A grid with competitors' logos at the top of each column looks more like a co-branded chart than a header row with their names. Names in bold do the identifying job. If you want visual anchors, use neutral column colours and your own icon set rather than borrowed marks.

A few habits keep comparison pages defensible:

• Date each claim. "Pricing from each company's public pricing page, checked October 2026" in the table caption, and a review date you actually keep.
• Compare like with like. Match plan tiers and billing periods, and say which plans you compared.
• Quote, don't paraphrase, the competitor's limits. If their docs say a feature is "available on Business and Enterprise," say that, with a link.
• Avoid their styling. Do not reuse a competitor's brand colours, typeface or screenshots styled as if they came from the competitor. Slack's terms ask third parties not to "use or imitate the distinctive 'look and feel'" of Slack, and Apple's say "You may not imitate the distinctive Apple packaging, web site design, logos, or typefaces."

One startup homepage, six borrowed marks

Take a hypothetical invoicing startup with a homepage that shows six other companies' marks. The inputs: the startup has three paying clients who signed a standard services agreement with no publicity clause, one article about it in a regional business paper, an integration listed in the Slack Marketplace, and an iPhone app live on the App Store. Here is how each mark comes out against the use-case table.

After the audit the page shows one client logo (Client C, plus Client A's only if it says yes), one official badge, and two references in text, for the newspaper article and the Slack integration. Every statement left on the page is true and approved: Client B's logo goes because B asked not to be named, and the masthead goes because one article is not an endorsement. The audit took one permission request, one removal, two logo-to-text rewrites and one badge fix.

A pre-publish check for any borrowed mark

Run each mark on a page through these questions before it goes live. A "no" on any of the first four means use the name in text, or get permission.

1. Is the statement true? The client is a client, the integration works, the coverage exists, the comparison is current.
2. Do you need the mark at all? If the name in text identifies the company, the logo is extra.
3. Does the company offer a badge or icon for this exact use? If yes, use that file and its rules, and nothing else.
4. Do you have written permission or a licence that covers the website? A contract clause, an email from the client's marketing team, or a program agreement.
5. Is the mark smaller and less prominent than your own brand? Apple, Microsoft and Google all ask for this in their own words.
6. Is it unmodified? No recolouring to match your palette, no cropping, no outlines or shadows, no animation.
7. Would a first-time visitor read the page as a partnership? Look at headlines like "Partners" or "Official," colour schemes that match the other brand, and logos placed next to your own as a lockup.
8. Is there a credit line where the brand asks for one? Apple, Microsoft and Slack each give a format.

If the answers are mixed, the text version is almost always available and almost never a problem. That is the practical meaning of the Tabari ruling for a web designer: the brokers kept the word Lexus and lost only the logo.

Trademark symbols and credit lines on your page

The ® symbol is a notice for the owner of a registered mark, not a duty for everyone who mentions it. Under 15 U.S.C. 1111, a registrant "may give notice that his mark is registered" by displaying "the letter R enclosed within a circle, thus ®," and a registrant who fails to give notice cannot recover profits or damages in an infringement suit unless the defendant had actual notice. The USPTO's trademark basics page says owners may use TM or SM before registration and ® once registered, and only "with the trademark for the goods or services listed in" the registration.

Nothing in those sections requires you to add ® after another company's name on your page. Company terms are a separate matter:

• Apple asks for credit lines "wherever legal information is provided," once per communication or website, and when the App Store badge is used, to "credit both Apple and the Apple Logo," following its trademark list.
• Microsoft asks you to "include a trademark footnote," and gives the pattern "Microsoft, (list additional trademarks in alphabetical order) are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies."
• Slack asks for the ® symbol on the most prominent use of the word in the U.S., the line "Slack is a registered trademark and service mark of Slack Technologies, Inc." at the bottom of the page, and "Copyright 2023 Slack Technologies, LLC." on marketing materials in type no smaller than 7 pt. The two company names differ in Slack's own text; copy the lines as Slack gives them.

Check Apple's trademark list for which of its marks take ® before copying a line; a footer along these lines then covers all three: "Apple and App Store are trademarks of Apple Inc. Slack is a registered trademark and service mark of Slack Technologies, Inc. Other names are trademarks of their respective owners." Our brand style guide walkthrough covers where a site's legal and trademark notes usually live.

When a company asks you to take its logo down

A request to remove a logo is common and usually polite. Slack's terms, for example, reserve the right to "ask that you stop using the brand assets at any time." Most such letters ask for a change, not money, and Tabari explains why: a court may order a nominative use modified so that it passes all three factors, but "may not enjoin nominative use of the mark altogether." The name usually survives; the logo, the colours and any wording that implies a partnership are what go.

A sensible response looks like the audit above. Remove the logo or badge in question, keep or rewrite the plain-text reference so it states only the true relationship, and reply in writing with what you changed and when. If the letter claims your text itself is infringing, or asks for payment, that is the point to bring in a trademark lawyer rather than rewriting the page on your own.

Removing the logo is also the moment to look at the rest of the site with the same eyes. Client case studies, slide decks posted as PDFs, email signatures and old landing pages often carry the same mark. Our design asset licensing checklist is a quick way to sweep a project for third-party material of all kinds, and if the logo you are being asked about turns out to be a copy of your own client's artwork, the DMCA takedown guide covers the copyright side.

For your own brand, the reverse question is how to stop others using your logo. That starts with registration, and the USPTO logo trademark guide prices a filing and walks through the drawing types; the copyright registration guide covers the separate copyright filing for the artwork.

Logo permission questions

Do I need permission to put client logos on my website?

Get it in writing: a client logo wall is closer to an endorsement than a reference, so nominative fair use gives it little cover, and many client contracts forbid publicity without consent. A short written permission from each client, ideally naming the logo file and a removal process, settles it.

Is it legal to say my product integrates with another company's product?

Yes, when it is true and worded as a reference. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Slack all allow their names in plain text for compatibility or integration, with conditions such as a referential phrase, lower prominence than your own name, and no suggestion of partnership. Slack limits "integrated with Slack" to apps in the Slack Marketplace.

Does a disclaimer such as "not affiliated with" make logo use safe?

It helps but does not cure everything. In Tabari, the court called a prominent disclaimer "not required" but "relevant" to the analysis. A disclaimer cannot fix a page whose logos and styling still make it look official, and it does not override a brand's own licence terms.

Can I put a competitor's logo in a comparison table?

You can name the competitor; the logo is usually unnecessary. US law allows truthful comparative advertising, but a logo adds to the risk that the table looks co-branded, and every claim in it must be accurate and current to stay clear of the false-advertising branch of 15 U.S.C. 1125(a).

Can I show a company's logo in a blog post about that company?

Commentary about a company or its rebrand is the strongest case for showing a logo, because the logo is the subject. Keep it at a modest size inside the discussion, unaltered, and not used as the post's own branding. The dilution exclusions in 1125(c) name "commenting upon the famous mark owner" for famous marks.

Does this apply to sites outside the United States?

No. The statutes, the Tabari case and the reasoning here are US law. The brand pages quoted are worldwide terms, so they apply wherever you are, but local trademark and advertising law decides the rest.

Statutes, cases and brand pages cited

• 15 U.S.C. 1114 (remedies; infringement of registered marks), uscode.house.gov, current through Public Law 119-136 (October 22, 2026); read October 31, 2026.
• 15 U.S.C. 1125 (false designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution), subsections (a)(1) and (c)(3), uscode.house.gov, read October 31, 2026.
• 15 U.S.C. 1115(b)(4) (descriptive fair use defence), uscode.house.gov, read October 31, 2026.
• 15 U.S.C. 1111 (notice of registration), uscode.house.gov, read October 31, 2026.
• Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Tabari, No. 07-55344 (9th Cir. filed July 8, 2010): opinion PDF from the Ninth Circuit's site, read October 31, 2026. New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, Inc., 971 F.2d 302 (9th Cir. 1992), is described here as the Tabari opinion summarises it.
• USPTO, What is a trademark?, read October 31, 2026.
• Apple, Guidelines for Using Apple Trademarks and Copyrights, read October 31, 2026; no last-updated date shown.
• Apple, App Store Marketing Guidelines, including the marketing agreement printed on the page, read October 31, 2026; no last-updated date shown.
• Microsoft, Trademark and Brand Guidelines, read October 31, 2026.
• Google, brand resource center "brand elements" page, Wayback copy, saved December 23, 2024, read October 31, 2026. The live address now leads to Google's Partner Marketing Hub, which asks for an application before showing its guidance.
• Slack, Slack brand terms, read October 31, 2026; no effective date shown.
• Meta's brand resources page is not quoted, because its text was not available in a readable copy; other countries' trademark law and state unfair-competition law are also outside its scope.