Intellectual Property Policy

Last updated: November 11, 2026

Every Gift Ink gift is a small piece of one couple’s story: your date in numerals, your two first names, the picture you scrolled back through your camera roll to find. Nothing on it should belong to somebody else. This policy explains what we own on giftink.shop, how you may use it, the rules we follow so that your gift never borrows another person’s brand, character or photo, and how to tell us about a trademark, design, likeness or other intellectual property concern. Copyright notices have their own step-by-step page: DMCA.

1. What belongs to Gift Ink

Everything you see on giftink.shop that is not a customer’s own photo or words is owned by Gift Ink or used with permission. That includes:

• the name Gift Ink and our logo, two ink dots joined by one pen stroke;
• the drawings on our products, for example the pen line between two dots, the couch on the movie-night designs, the two keys on one ring, the tin-can telephone, the five growth rings and the year-one numeral;
• the phrases we wrote for our designs and the way they are set on the product;
• product names, product descriptions, category descriptions, help pages and policy pages;
• the way the store is organised by how long a couple has been together, the drawn timeline on the homepage, and the illustrations and icons around the site;
• product pictures and any page images that are added to the site.

This content is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws in the United States and in the other countries where we sell: Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

2. What you are welcome to do

• Look at, save or print pages for your own personal use, for example to show your partner’s best friend which pillow you are thinking about.
• Share links to our product pages or categories by message, email or on social media.
• Quote a short piece of our text, such as a product name, when you write about a gift you received, with a link back to the page.
• Post a photo of a Gift Ink gift you bought or were given. It is yours.

3. What you may not do

• Copy our designs, drawings or phrases onto other products, whether for sale or to give away in bulk.
• Copy our product descriptions, page text or pictures onto another store, marketplace listing or website.
• Use the Gift Ink name or logo, or anything that looks confusingly similar, in a way that suggests a connection with us.
• Scrape or download the site’s content with automated tools, other than normal search-engine indexing.
• Remove a copyright or trademark notice from anything you download from the site.

If you would like to use something in a way this list does not cover, ask us first. Section 9 explains how.

4. What we will not print on your gift

Couple gifts can tempt people to add the logo of the team you cheer for together, the cartoon couple you both love, or a famous actor who “looks just like you”. We do not print any of these, because they belong to other people. Specifically, we decline:

Our personalisation fields never suggest team, brand or character names, and our designs never include them. If an order asks for something on this list, we email you before we make it and either agree a change with you or cancel the order with a full refund, sent within 7 days. The same rule is in our Terms of Service.

5. Your photo, your rights, your partner’s say

When you tick “I will email my photo” on a product page and then send us the picture, you confirm three things:

1. You may use the photo. You took it, your partner took it, a friend took it and is happy for you to use it, or you were given the rights by the photographer, for example in a wedding package.
2. The people in it agree. Usually that is the two of you. If someone else is in the background, it is kind to crop them out; it also helps your faces print larger.
3. Nothing in it belongs to someone else. A logo on a shirt in the background is fine in a holiday snap, but a photo that is mostly a brand’s artwork, a poster or a screen is not something we can print.

You keep every right in your photo. Gift Ink uses it only to make, check and deliver your order. We print it as you send it, without a proof, and if it cannot print clearly we email you and ask for another one. We never show it on the site, in adverts or on social media, and we delete it 30 days after your order is delivered. Our Photo Help page explains how to choose a picture that prints well, and our Privacy Policy explains how photos are stored.

6. If someone printed a photo of you

A gift from Gift Ink should only show people who wanted to be on it. If you believe your picture was sent to us without your agreement, email us with the subject “Photo of me”. If the order has not been made, we will not make it. Tell us what you can about the photo and when it might have been ordered; we will not share the buyer’s details with you, but we will tell you what we did.

7. Respecting other people’s rights

Our designs are drawn for Gift Ink. We do not knowingly sell anything that infringes a trademark, copyright, design right or right of publicity. Where a design uses a traditional idea that belongs to everyone, such as the anniversary year names (paper, cotton, leather, wood, tin, silver) or a date written as numerals, we draw our own version of it. If we learn that a product might infringe someone’s rights, we stop selling it while we review it and remove it if the concern is valid.

8. How to report an intellectual property concern

Email support@giftink.shop with the subject “IP concern” and include:

1. your name, contact details and your relationship to the rights owner (owner, employee, lawyer or agent);
2. the right you believe is affected, for example a trademark registration number and country, or a description of your design and where it was first published;
3. the URL of each product or page concerned, or details of a gift you saw;
4. a short explanation of why you believe it infringes;
5. a statement that the information you give is accurate and that you are authorised to act for the rights owner.

For a copyright notice about a photo, drawing or text, please follow the steps on our DMCA page instead, because it asks for a few extra statements.

9. What happens next

1. We confirm we have your report within 24 hours on business days.
2. We review the product, design or page and aim to finish within 5 business days. If we need more information we ask you before deciding.
3. If your concern is valid, we remove or change the product or content and stop any open orders that use it, refunding those customers.
4. We email you to say what we did.

If we decide the content does not infringe, we explain why. You can always reply with more information.

10. Ideas and suggestions

Couples sometimes write to us with an idea for a new stage on the timeline or a new design, such as a gift for a first apartment with a balcony, or for the day you adopted a houseplant together. We love reading them. If you send an idea, we may use it freely without paying you, but we will never publish your name, your photo or any personal detail without your written permission.

11. Permission requests

To ask permission to use our content, for example a quote from a page in an article, email support@giftink.shop with the subject “Permission request”, what you would like to use, where and for how long. We reply within 24 hours on business days.

Common questions

Can we put the logo of our favourite team on a couple shirt?

No. Team, league, club and college names and logos belong to those organisations, and we do not print them even for a single private gift. Many couples choose the date of the first game they went to together, written as numerals, which says the same thing to the two of you.

Can I use a photo a friend took of us?

Yes, if your friend is happy for you to print it. Most friends are. If the photo was taken by a professional, for example at a wedding or an engagement shoot, check what your package allows; many include personal print rights.

Can I print a line from our song?

Song lyrics are usually protected by copyright. A very short phrase is sometimes fine, but whole lines usually are not, so we may ask you to change it. The song title with your date, or a line in your own words about the song, always works.

Can I post a picture of the gift I received?

Of course. The gift is yours, and so is your photo of it. Tagging us is never required.

I sell gifts too. Can I use one of your designs?

Not without written permission. Our designs are only for gifts bought from Gift Ink. Email us if you would like to ask about something specific.

12. Contact

Gift Ink, 2248 Rugby Row, Madison, WI 53726, US. Email support@giftink.shop. See also our Terms of Service, our DMCA page and Contact Us.