This Notice identifies the trademarks, service marks, product names, and other proprietary brand elements (collectively, “Marks”) of Apex Governance LLC (“Apex”) and explains how third parties may — and may not — use them. Apex's Marks are valuable assets and are protected by trademark, unfair-competition, and related laws in the jurisdictions in which Apex operates and offers its products.
Use of any Apex Mark in a manner that creates confusion as to source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement, or that dilutes the distinctive quality of the Mark, is prohibited.
§ 01 Apex Marks
The following are Marks of Apex Governance LLC. The status of each Mark (registered, pending, or common-law) varies by jurisdiction; the absence of a registration symbol next to any particular Mark below does not indicate that Apex does not assert rights in that Mark in any given country.
House marks. Apex Governance™, Apex™, the Apex Governance logo, and the Apex monogram.
Product family marks. Apex G-Score™, G-Score™, the G-Score logo, and the G-Score wordmark in stylized form.
Country product marks. G-Score Korea™, G-Score India™, G-Score Taiwan™, G-Score Thailand™, G-Score Japan™, and the corresponding internal short forms GS-KOR, GS-IND, GS-TWN, GS-THA, and GS-JPN. Equivalent marks for additional markets will be announced as those markets enter coverage.
Methodology and component marks. TBR Framework™, the TBR three-axis architecture (Transparency · Balance · Risk), Kill Switch™, and the five archetype designations: Celestial™, Poison Apple™, Hidden Gem™, Chameleon™, and Time Bomb™.
Publication marks. The titles and cover designs of Apex's published research, including the book The Governance Gap, the Apex Research Note series, and any future serial publications.
§ 02 Permitted Reference Use
Subject to the conditions below, you may refer to Apex's Marks in editorial, journalistic, academic, and analytical contexts — for example, when describing Apex's products, citing Apex research, comparing Apex's offerings against competing products, or reporting on the governance-data sector — without obtaining prior written consent.
Permitted reference use must:
- identify the Mark accurately, using the form shown in this Notice (e.g., “Apex G-Score” rather than “ApexScore” or “Apex™ G™Score”);
- use the Mark as an adjective followed by a generic noun on first reference where reasonable (e.g., “the Apex G-Score governance score,” “the TBR Framework methodology”);
- not modify, abbreviate, translate, transliterate, or stylize the Mark in a way that creates a new or confusing form;
- not present the Mark more prominently than the user's own name, logo, or branding;
- not suggest that Apex sponsors, endorses, or is affiliated with the user, the user's products, or the user's views, unless that is in fact the case and is documented in a written agreement.
A trademark attribution line, where space allows, is appreciated: “Apex G-Score and TBR Framework are trademarks of Apex Governance LLC.”
§ 03 Prohibited Use
Without Apex's prior written consent, you may not:
- use any Apex Mark, or any mark confusingly similar to an Apex Mark, as part of your own company name, product name, service name, domain name, social-media handle, application name, or any other source identifier;
- register, attempt to register, or oppose a trademark filing of any Apex Mark in any jurisdiction;
- use any Apex Mark in a manner that disparages Apex, its personnel, its products, or its research conclusions, or that is otherwise misleading, defamatory, obscene, or unlawful;
- use any Apex Mark in connection with the sale, distribution, or marketing of products or services that are not produced or licensed by Apex, in a manner that suggests Apex's endorsement;
- incorporate any Apex Mark into a generative-AI training dataset, a model name, a system prompt, or any output presented as if produced by Apex; or
- use any Apex Mark in keyword-advertising, metadata, or search-engine-optimization techniques in a manner intended to divert traffic from Apex or to create initial-interest confusion.
§ 04 Logos and Visual Assets
Apex's logos, monograms, color systems, and other visual brand assets are made available only under specific written grants — for example, in connection with a co-marketing arrangement, an executed data-license agreement, or an academic citation guideline supplied by Apex. The visual assets that appear on the Website may not be downloaded, extracted, modified, or redistributed for use elsewhere.
Requests for permission to use Apex logos in a presentation, publication, or event collateral should be directed to legal@apexgscore.com with a description of the intended use and any draft materials available for review.
§ 05 Internal Code Names
The internal short forms of country product marks (GS-KOR, GS-IND, GS-TWN, GS-THA, GS-JPN) are used by Apex for engineering, file-naming, and internal documentation purposes. Customer-facing communications, presentations, and publications should use the full product names (G-Score Korea, G-Score India, and so on). Either form is acceptable in academic citations, with the full name preferred on first reference.
§ 06 Third-Party Marks
Names, logos, and other marks of third parties that may appear on the Website — including the names of regulators, exchanges, data sources, issuers, conferences, publications, and peer organizations — are the property of their respective owners. Their appearance on the Website does not imply any endorsement of Apex by those parties, or any endorsement by Apex of those parties' products or services, except where an affiliation is expressly described.
References to publicly traded issuers in the context of case studies, market pathology discussions, or backtesting examples are made for editorial and analytical purposes consistent with applicable fair-comment and fair-use principles. The use of an issuer's name in this context is not a license to use Apex's commentary about that issuer.
§ 07 Reporting Misuse
Apex monitors for misuse of its Marks across the markets in which it operates. If you become aware of a third party using an Apex Mark in a manner inconsistent with this Notice — including counterfeit publications, unauthorized resale of scoring outputs, look-alike domain names, fake social-media accounts, or training-data scrapes — please report it to legal@apexgscore.com. Reports may be submitted in English or Korean.
Trademark complaints concerning content hosted on the Website that you believe infringes your trademark rights should be directed to legal@apexgscore.com with sufficient detail to allow Apex to evaluate the claim.
§ 08 Reservation of Rights
Nothing in this Notice grants any right, title, interest, or license, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, in or to any Apex Mark, beyond the limited reference use expressly described above. All rights not expressly granted are reserved by Apex Governance LLC.