Trademark Policy.

1. The marks

The Sweet Note, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“SweetNote”, “we”, “us”), claims rights in the following trademarks and service marks (collectively, the “Marks”):

Use of the ™ or ® symbol next to a Mark is at SweetNote’s discretion and depends on the registration status of the specific Mark in the relevant jurisdiction. Where a Mark is unregistered, SweetNote nonetheless claims common-law rights based on first use in commerce.

The methodology names are claimed as marks only as used in connection with the SweetNote platform and its published methodologies. SweetNote does not claim exclusive rights in generic or descriptive terms (such as “A/B”) standing alone, apart from that platform context.

2. Acceptable use without prior permission

You may use the Marks without prior permission from SweetNote in the following narrowly-scoped contexts:

2.1 Nominative fair use

You may refer to SweetNote by name in a way that accurately identifies SweetNote as the source of a product, service, or methodology, in journalistic, editorial, analytical, academic, or comparative-shopping contexts, as long as:

• The use is no greater than reasonably necessary to identify SweetNote
• The use does not falsely suggest sponsorship, endorsement, partnership, or affiliation by SweetNote
• The use does not create a likelihood of consumer confusion as to source
• The use does not tarnish or dilute the Marks

Specific examples that fall within nominative fair use:

• A journalist writing “Acme is using SweetNote to measure its donor stewardship campaign”
• An academic citing a SweetNote methodology paper as “Cline et al., Behavioral Brand Moment Research, SSRN 2026”
• A blog post comparing SweetNote to other research-tech platforms in a comparative analysis
• A conference speaker referencing SweetNote by name in a talk about engagement-measurement methodologies
• An analyst report describing SweetNote alongside Qualtrics, Sprig, Forsta, and Medallia in the research-tech category

2.2 Customer attribution to their own brand

A signed brand customer of SweetNote may use the phrase “Powered by SweetNote” (small text, near the foot of the reveal page) on the recipient-facing reveal page operated by SweetNote under the Customer’s tenant configuration. This is the standard attribution model and does not require additional permission. The text “Powered by SweetNote” may not be modified or styled in a way inconsistent with the SweetNote brand guidance.

2.3 Founding-partner use under MSA §7

A signed founding-partner customer may state, in factual marketing language, that the Customer is a “founding partner of SweetNote” or “founding-partner brand on SweetNote’s platform”, provided the Customer is currently in good standing under the executed MSA. Founding-partner Customers may use the SweetNote wordmark in attribution language alongside the Customer’s own brand, subject to the Brand Assets policy. Founding-partner attribution rights terminate on termination of the MSA per MSA §5.

2.4 Academic and research-community use

Academics, students, peer reviewers, and members of the research community may refer to SweetNote, BBMR™, and the SweetNote methodology names in academic publications, conference presentations, course materials, working papers, theses, and dissertations without prior permission, as long as the use is accurate and the citation is appropriate. SweetNote welcomes such use; please email research@thesweetnote.com with a link to the publication so we can track and acknowledge it.

3. Prohibited use

The following uses of the Marks are prohibited without express written permission from SweetNote:

• Use as part of your own brand name, product name, service name, or domain name. You may not use any Mark as part of the name of your own company, your own product, your own service, your own SaaS, your own domain, or any other commercial identifier you operate. This includes minor variants (e.g., “SweetNotes”, “SweetNotePro”, “Sweet Notez”, “BBMR-Pro”, etc.).
• Domain-name registration containing a Mark. You may not register or operate a domain name that contains any of the Marks (including misspellings, transliterations, IDN equivalents, and confusingly similar strings). Registrations made for purposes of resale to SweetNote, traffic diversion, or cybersquatting are subject to the dispute procedure in Section 6.
• Modification of the Marks. You may not modify, animate, stylize, recolor (except for legitimate single-color application on a constrained background), distort, rotate, alter, or otherwise change the SweetNote logomark or wordmark.
• Use suggesting endorsement or partnership where none exists. You may not use any Mark in a way that suggests SweetNote endorses, sponsors, partners with, certifies, or is otherwise affiliated with your product, service, or content when SweetNote has not entered such a relationship. This includes “Trusted by SweetNote”, “SweetNote partner”, “SweetNote-certified”, and analogous claims.
• Use as a keyword for paid search advertising bidding against SweetNote. You may not purchase or bid on any Mark as a paid-search keyword to drive traffic to a product or service that competes with SweetNote or that misrepresents SweetNote’s relationship with the advertiser.
• Use that is misleading, deceptive, or tarnishing. You may not use any Mark in a context that is misleading, deceptive, that disparages SweetNote, or that associates SweetNote with content that violates SweetNote’s Acceptable Use Policy §3 (prohibited content).
• Use to train an AI model or generate synthetic SweetNote content. You may not use the Marks, the SweetNote logomark, the SweetNote methodology names, or the published SweetNote content as training data for an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model, or to generate AI-produced content purporting to come from SweetNote or to apply the SweetNote methodology, without prior written permission. This is an express reservation of rights for purposes of any applicable text-and-data-mining exception under EU law and any analogous law.
• Use as a generic term. You may not use any Mark as a generic noun or verb. Specifically: “SweetNote” is not a synonym for “platform for physical-digital brand moments” or “personalized video card”; the methodology names (Snapshot, Cohort, A/B, Gift A/B, Gift Lift) are not generic terms for any class of research methodology. Genericization risk is a material trademark concern; please use the Marks as proper adjectives modifying the relevant noun (e.g., “the SweetNote platform”, “a Gift Lift study”).

4. Use requiring prior permission

For any use that does not fall within Section 2 (Acceptable use without prior permission) and is not prohibited by Section 3 (Prohibited use), please request written permission before use by emailing legal@thesweetnote.com with:

• A description of the proposed use
• The specific Mark(s) you intend to use
• The context (publication, product, event, course, etc.) and the audience
• The timeline

SweetNote will respond within ten (10) business days. Permission, if granted, is non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable, and limited to the specific use described in the request.

5. Proper-usage guidance

When you do use the Marks, please follow these conventions to preserve the integrity of the Marks and avoid generic dilution:

• Capitalization. “SweetNote” is one word, no space, with capital S and capital N. “The Sweet Note, Inc.” is the legal entity (used only in legal contexts and footers). The full methodology name is “Behavioral Brand Moment Research™” with title capitalization; the abbreviation “BBMR™” is all caps.
• Methodology names. “Snapshot”, “Cohort”, “A/B”, “Gift A/B”, and “Gift Lift” are the canonical methodology names. They are proper adjectives, not generic categories. A SweetNote Gift Lift study is a particular product; a generic gift-incrementality study by another vendor is not.
• Use as adjective. Use the Marks as adjectives modifying a generic noun (“the SweetNote platform”, “a Gift Lift study”, “the BBMR™ methodology”) rather than as nouns. This protects the Marks from genericization.
• Trademark notice. Every customer-facing use of the BBMR™ marks (“Behavioral Brand Moment Research™”, “BBMR™”) carries the ™ notice, use by use, not just the first. For other Marks, include the appropriate trademark notice symbol (™ for unregistered, ® for federally-registered) at SweetNote’s direction on first prominent use in a document or surface; subsequent uses of those Marks in the same document do not require repeated notice.
• Pronunciation guidance. “BBMR™” is pronounced as the four-letter abbreviation (B-B-M-R), not as “bummer”.

6. Reporting infringement and domain disputes

If you become aware of a third-party use of any Mark that violates this Policy, please report it to legal@thesweetnote.com with:

• The URL, screenshot, or other evidence of the alleged misuse
• A description of why you believe the use violates this Policy
• Your contact information (so SweetNote can follow up if needed)

SweetNote investigates reports in good faith. SweetNote may, at its discretion, take any of the following enforcement actions:

• Send a cease-and-desist letter to the alleged infringer
• File a takedown request with the relevant hosting provider, app store, or search engine
• File a UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) complaint with WIPO or NAF for a confusingly-similar domain
• File a federal action under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act (unfair competition / unregistered-mark protection) — and, if and when the SWEETNOTE marks achieve federal registration, a registered-mark infringement action under Section 32
• Engage with the country-specific trademark registry or domain-resolution body in the relevant foreign jurisdiction

SweetNote does not commit to any specific enforcement action and reserves the right to allocate enforcement resources at its discretion. SweetNote also reserves the right not to enforce against a particular use; non-enforcement of a particular use does not waive SweetNote’s rights with respect to other uses.

7. Domain-name disputes

SweetNote operates the canonical domains thesweetnote.com, thesweetnote.org (defensive), sweetnote.app (defensive), and analogous variants. SweetNote considers the following domain-name registrations to be infringing without prior permission:

• Any domain containing “sweetnote”, “sweet-note”, “sweetnotes”, “the-sweet-note”, or confusingly similar strings, except for the canonical and defensive SweetNote registrations
• Any domain containing “bbmr” or “behavioral-brand-moment” or analogous methodology-mark variants, except for academic, editorial, or other nominative-fair-use contexts
• Any domain containing a SweetNote methodology name in a commercial product or service context (e.g., “giftlift.com” for a product positioned as a substitute for SweetNote)
• Misspellings, transliterations, IDN equivalents, and typo-squatting variants of the above

SweetNote pursues such registrations through cease-and-desist correspondence, UDRP complaints, or federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) actions, as appropriate.

8. Brand assets and visual guidelines

The visual elements of the SweetNote brand (logo files, color palette, typography, spacing rules, usage examples) are governed by the companion Brand Assets policy. Visual modifications, recoloring, or stylistic alterations of the SweetNote logomark or wordmark are prohibited except in the limited circumstances permitted in the Brand Assets policy.

9. Changes to this Policy

SweetNote may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is always posted at thesweetnote.com/legal/trademark-policy.html with an effective date at the top. Material changes are reflected in an updated effective date.

10. Contact

Permission requests, enforcement reports, and policy questions: legal@thesweetnote.com. Academic-use coordination: research@thesweetnote.com. Press inquiries: press@thesweetnote.com.