Skip to main content
Participating Frequently
April 27, 2018
Answered

PDF Icon use legality?

  • April 27, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 5047 views

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this in but I wanted check because I don't want to land in legal trouble.

I created an icon set for a website I'm making and I need to know if this icon is legal to use.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Dov Isaacs

On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated…

No, it isn't legal to use the Acrobat trefoil in the manner that you wish to use it.

          - Dov

2 replies

Dov Isaacs
Dov IsaacsCorrect answer
Legend
April 27, 2018

On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated…

No, it isn't legal to use the Acrobat trefoil in the manner that you wish to use it.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Joel Geraci
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 27, 2018

It's not.

Quoting the guidelines...

The Adobe PDF file icon is provided solely as an indicator of an active link to a Portable Document Format file with a .pdf filename

extension created using an Adobe Acrobat product.

The full guidelines and images are here...

Icons and web logo guidelines | Adobe

You could use another PDF icon that does not include the Acrobat trefoil if you want a custom icon in blue.

Participating Frequently
April 27, 2018

Alright, thank you. I just wasn't clear on it since the trefoil is similar but not the same. I'm glad I asked!

Joel Geraci
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 27, 2018

The law says that a trademark is infringed upon when the other one is similar enough to confuse consumers.