Can you legally use company logos in your product?

Showing a company's logo inside your product is, in most common cases, allowed — but the boundary depends on how you display it, not whether you display it. This FAQ explains the practical rules teams actually run into when rendering logos in dashboards, customer lists, marketplaces, and B2B UIs.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer about your specific use case before launching anything user-facing.

Quick answer

In most B2B product contexts — customer lists, directories, integrations pages, dashboards, search results, news aggregators — using a company's logo to identify that company is generally accepted under two legal doctrines:

• Trademark law allows nominative use: using a mark to refer to the actual product, company, or service it represents.
• Copyright law generally doesn't apply to simple logos at all, and where it does, the use is usually de minimis or fair.

The cases where you get into trouble are different: making it look like the company endorses you, modifying the logo, using it as your own branding, or using it in paid advertising without permission.

Trademark vs. copyright: which one actually applies?

Both can apply to a logo, but they protect different things.

Trademark

A trademark protects a brand identifier. The legal question is always "does this use cause consumer confusion about the source?"

If you list "Acme Corp" with Acme's logo in a directory of customers, no reasonable consumer thinks Acme made the directory. That's nominative use.

If you put Acme's logo on a t-shirt and sell it, a consumer might think Acme made or licensed the shirt. That's infringement.

Copyright

Copyright protects creative expression. Simple wordmarks and geometric logos often don't meet the originality threshold at all; complex illustrated logos can.

Even where copyright applies, rendering a small thumbnail to identify a company is usually fair use — transformative purpose, low resolution, and no market impact.

When you generally can use a company's logo

These uses are common and well-established:

• Identifying a customer — "Trusted by Acme, Globex, Initech." Standard practice.
• Customer lists, directories, and search results — listing companies you cover, integrate with, or index.
• Comparison content — "How we compare to Acme."
• Editorial / news — reporting on or covering a company.
• Integration pages — "Connect with Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot."
• B2B dashboards and CRMs — showing the logo of a company a user is researching or working with.
• Marketplaces and aggregators — showing brand identity next to listings.

When you should not use a company's logo

These are the patterns that get teams cease-and-desist letters:

• Implying endorsement — "Recommended by Acme" when Acme hasn't endorsed you.
• Modifying the logo — changing colors outside the brand's allowed palette, adding elements, distorting proportions, or stylizing.
• Using it as your own branding — incorporating someone else's logo into your own marketing assets, hero images, or product chrome in a way that looks like co-branding.
• Paid advertising — most companies treat ads as a different category and require explicit permission, even when the underlying use case (e.g. "trusted by") would be fine on your own site.
• Merchandise — putting the logo on physical goods you sell.
• Misleading association — using the logo in a context that falsely implies a partnership, certification, or affiliation.

Specific use cases

Customer lists ("trusted by")

Generally fine on your own site for companies that are actually customers. Many brand guideline pages explicitly permit this. If a customer asks you to remove their logo, remove it.

Internal dashboards and CRMs

Showing a logo next to a company record so a user can recognize it visually is identification, not endorsement. This is the canonical use case for logo APIs.

Public directories and marketplaces

Showing logos in a directory you operate (vendor lists, integration galleries, news aggregators) is generally allowed under nominative use, as long as you don't imply the listed companies have endorsed the directory itself.

Comparison pages

Allowed when factual and clearly editorial. Don't modify the competitor's logo or use it more prominently than your own brand.

Paid ads and out-of-product surfaces

Many brands treat ads as a separate category with their own permission process — even when the same use on your own site would be fine. When in doubt, ask.

Brand guidelines: when they matter

Many large companies (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Slack, GitHub) publish brand asset pages with specific rules: no recoloring, approved dark-mode variants, clearspace, no tight crops.

Brand guidelines don't override trademark law — nominative use still applies — but following them is the safest path and what brand teams expect. ClearLogo's output (background-aware framing, dark-mode variants, consistent padding) is designed to render in line with how brand guidelines typically expect logos to appear.

Where ClearLogo fits

What ClearLogo does:

• Returns background-aware, consistently-framed output that respects brand presentation defaults.
• Provides dark-mode variants where available, matching how brand guidelines typically expect logos to appear on dark backgrounds.
• Lets you remove specific logos on request when a brand owner asks.

What ClearLogo does not do:

• Give you permission to use a logo in ways the brand owner prohibits.
• Replace your own legal review for high-risk use cases (paid ads, merchandise, public marketing campaigns).

FAQ

Do I need permission to show a company's logo in my SaaS product?

For internal identification — dashboards, directories, customer records, integration pages — generally no. This is nominative use and is well-established. For prominent marketing surfaces ("Acme uses us"), it's polite and common practice to ask, and many companies will say yes.

Can I show competitors' logos on a comparison page?

Yes, when the content is factual and clearly editorial. Don't modify the competitor's logo or imply they endorse the comparison.

What about logos of companies I'm not a customer of?

If you're identifying them (search results, news, directories, references), that's nominative use. If you're implying they're your customer, that's misleading and a problem.

Can I modify a logo to fit my UI?

Cropping whitespace, resizing proportionally, and adapting to dark mode using the brand's published dark variant is generally fine. Recoloring, redrawing, or adding elements is not. ClearLogo handles the safe transformations (framing, ratio, dark variant) automatically.

What if a company asks me to remove their logo?

Remove it. Even when the use is legally defensible, the cost of a dispute almost always exceeds the value of any single logo.

Does ClearLogo grant me a trademark license?

No. No logo API can. ClearLogo provides the rendered file; the legal basis for displaying it has to come from your use case (nominative use, fair use, an explicit license, or the brand's published guidelines).

Is this different in the EU, UK, or elsewhere?

The doctrines have different names (e.g. "honest practices" in the EU, "referential use" in some jurisdictions) but the practical outcome is similar: identifying a company by its logo is generally allowed; implying endorsement or modifying the mark is not.

How does this apply to AI products?

Same framework. If your AI surfaces a company's logo as part of identifying that company (search, summaries, retrieval), that's nominative use. Generating fake logos that imitate real brands is a different category and runs into trademark law directly.