Bluesky recently acquired the rights to the trademark for “ATPROTOCOL” and its variants—including “AT Protocol” and “atproto”—from another company that was threatening to take legal action preventing the company and others from using the term. Now that Bluesky owns it, the atproto community’s continued use of the mark can be protected.
Given the nature of what we’re trying to accomplish with the protocol, it can feel a bit weird when lawyers get involved. We’re trying to shield atproto developers from having all their hard work undone by someone abusing the legal system. That really is it.
You can read a bit more about it on the new trademarks page or read the full policy (as far as legal documents go, this one’s pretty tidy; Bluesky’s lawyers are the best).
I’ve worked with Bluesky’s legal team to put together the FAQ below. If you have questions not answered here, feel free to reach out to [email protected].
Is Bluesky going to start charging for a license to use atproto? No, this is primarily a defensive measure. Our crack legal team tells me if you don’t enforce your mark, then anyone can come along and claim it. We acquired the rights and are going to defend it from bad actors while making it freely available to the ecosystem. Discussions about licensing fees will only arise if a commercial enterprise wants to use the mark (for profit) as part of its branding or product offerings.
Do I need a license?
Most everyday use cases don't require a license. You can create projects that refer to the protocol, say your app is compatible with atproto (as long as it actualy is!), discuss it in the community, write docs, even name open source packages or tooling (such as atproto-feed-tool or "AT Protocol SDK"). In general, be descriptive, be accurate, don't imply your implementation is official or endorsed, and keep your own name or brand at least as prominent as the mark.
Who does need a license? When your mark becomes a brand rather than a description. This includes product, company, or service names built around AT Protocol; paid or sponsored events; merchandise, registered domain names, official-sounding certifications, or any official use of the AT Protocol logo. Obviously, impersonation, scams, or presenting an incompatible protocol as atproto is not allowed.
We intend to offer the mark to people currently using it and to anyone else who wishes to use it in good faith. Read the terms and reach out if you believe you need a license.
What do you mean by good faith? The exact terms spell that out, but basically we want existing developers and service providers to continue to freely use “AT Protocol” and “atproto” to build the ecosystem while preventing anyone from coming along and trying to claim that they are atproto if they’re not.
Why is the trademark owned by Bluesky PBC and not another entity? The most straightforward answer is: practicality. We were able to acquire the trademark using the resources of Bluesky the public benefit corporation and want to offer trademark protection as soon as possible. We plan to transfer that ownership to an appropriate, independent protocol governance organization in the future.
Why not use the PLC association? The PLC association is chartered for the specific purpose of stewarding the directory. Giving it ownership of the trademark is not part of the mission of that organization.
Do I have to let people know I’ve been granted a license? No.
Isn’t this whole trademark thing antithetical to the entire ethos of a decentralized open-source protocol? Not really. We can’t share something that someone else owns. And, the law in the U.S. requires us to defend our mark or risk having someone else claim it as theirs. We do wish we could do it with fewer legal requirements. We’ve taken inspiration from other open-source projects that have taken a similar approach, including Wikimedia, Red Hat, Rust, Python Foundation, Apache, Mozilla, Linux, and Debian.