Metro style website

Question

Hi,

our client would like to build a website, which should be designed as a Metro style app. ( + build a Metro style app as well)

Is the Metro design somehow COPYRIGHTED ? Can anybody use it, also out of the Windows platform?

Thank you.

Answer 1

We will not answer legal questions in a forum.  Please have your legal department engage the legal folks here if you have specific legal questions:

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/Default.aspx

Your question is about intellectual property so you can start there.

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Jeff Sanders (MSFT)

Answer 2

I have an on-line application, and was thinking about adjusting its layout to the Metro style and creating a native Windows app ass soon as Windows 8 is officially launched. I know that the best is to talk about legal stuff with lawyers, but Bazo's question is a question that should be answered before you even start encouraging people to use the Metro style. Why am I supposed to even think about developing a Metro-styled application, if I cannot be sure whether I can do this legally? If Microsoft's policy is to tell people they should use Metro to style their apps, and then you can't answer such a basic question, then, I'm sorry, but there is something wrong. If I make a Windows 8 app, I would also like to make a website that looks similar to the app WITHOUT you frightening me. Google clearly says where and how I can use their Android UI, if I want to make an Android application, so why Microsoft says it's a "specific legal question", when it seems to be a very obvious and BASIC question, where and how one can use Metro?