DRAFT
Pop Boll trademark policy
Version 1 · Status: draft · Updated 2026-11-10
Draft, and not legal advice. This page says how Pop Boll's names may be used by people who build things for the Pop Boll. None of the names below is a registered trademark yet, and counsel has not reviewed this policy. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
The specifications are open and you do not need our permission to build to them. The names are different: they tell people what Pop Boll made, so we keep them for that. This page says what you may say about your product without asking, and what you may not.
The marks#
These names belong to Pop Boll (Graham Smith):
| Name | What it names |
|---|---|
| Pop Boll | the company and the ball itself |
| Bollawax | the software: the band, the judges and the images that run them |
| Bollard | the dock interface and the open ecosystem of docks |
| bollardeck | the API that docks and routines speak, and the import name of the Bollard SDK |
| Bollard SDK | the open library that clients of the platform build on |
| Bolltridge | the cart: the removable computer of the Pop Boll and the Glass Snipler |
| Bollport | the connection between a cart and the dock it stands in |
| Popsniplish | the language the band inside the Boll speaks |
| Glass Snipler | the first PWHAMSS device |
| PWHAMSS | the family of devices a person works on alongside the band |
| Waxviewer | the little screen that shows the band's factory animation |
| Boll Cap | the cap that ships on every Boll |
| Breakout Box | the desk box that carries the Boll's audio and video outputs |
A note on "Bollard". "Bollard" is also an ordinary English word (a short post). It needs a trademark search before anyone registers it, and it may never be registrable on its own. Until that search is done, we ask that you use it the way this page describes, as a name for our interface, and we do not claim the ordinary word.
What you may do without asking#
- Say what your product works with. "Works with the Pop Boll", "for the Pop Boll", "a speaker for your Pop Boll". This is nominative use: you are naming our product to describe yours.
- "A Bollard dock" and "Bollard compatible" for anything built to the Bollard Physical Specification. If you name a profile ("Bollard v1.0, Full profile"), you are stating that your product passes that profile's checklist.
- "Runs Bollawax" for a Compatible Device running a Genuine Image, as the Bollawax Device Licence defines them.
- "bollardeck" to describe the API your dock, cartridge, app or library implements ("speaks bollardeck", "a bollardeck client for Rust").
- Write about Pop Boll, review it, teach it and compare your product with ours, honestly.
What is not allowed#
- "Pop Boll" as the name, or part of the name, of a third-party device. "The Acme Pop Boll Speaker" is not allowed; "the Acme Speaker, for the Pop Boll" is fine. A device that runs Bollawax is still not a Pop Boll.
- Confusingly similar names: names, spellings or sounds close enough to ours that a buyer could think the product is ours (for example "PopBol", "Bollowax" or "Boltridge").
- Our logos, until a logo kit exists. Until then, use the names in plain text.
- Implying that Pop Boll made, approved, certified or endorses your product. Conformance to the specifications is self-declared and says nothing about us.
- Reading a right to a name into a software licence. The Bollawax Device Licence and the Snipler Use Grant cover software; neither gives a right in any name or logo beyond what this page says.
Maker codes#
Every physical device that runs Bollawax carries one device identity, a serial of the form PB####-<MAKER>-<hardware id>. MAKER is your maker code: 3 to 6 upper-case letters, registered with Pop Boll, free.
- To get one, ask through the contact form under every developer page. Say the code you would like, your name or company, and what you are building. Codes are first come, first served, and we may refuse a code that is confusingly similar to one of the marks above or to another maker's code.
- The registry is public: every registered code is listed on the makers page.
- Reserved codes:
UNOQandPI5are first-party (Pop Boll's own boards).SIMis reserved for the simulator and is never issued to a maker. - A maker code is not a trademark licence. It identifies whose device a serial belongs to, so the Service can admit it, and refuse it under the Device Licence if it has to.
What is not built#
- None of the marks above is registered anywhere, and the trademark search on "Bollard" has not been done.
- There is no logo kit.
- Maker codes are registered by hand through the contact form; there is no self-service registry and no automatic check that a code in a serial is registered.
- Counsel has not reviewed this policy.