With all the talk today about possible connections to POET due to the inclusion (or absence) of certain company names or logos in the new Corporate Presentation, I was motivated to find out whether POET actually needed the permission of those companies to include them in the presentation.

Although a search revealed a lot of opinions on the subject, (some more credible than others) I'm satisfied that explicit permission would not necessarily be needed for the use of the company names and logos in the manner that they were used in the presentation, and so just the fact that a company or it's logo is used does not in and of itself signal a relationship.

One idea that stuck with me after reading quite a few sources can be summed up by this statement: "Just because a company exercises its right to try to protect its brand by prohibiting the use of it's logo or name without consent, doesn't mean it has the legal right to do so."

Here's a good read from what seems to be a credible source on the subject.

http://www.fr.com/files/uploads/attachments/trademark/FishTrademarkThoughtsFall13-4page.pdf

Green