Implementing the protocol is free and always will be. Certification is what lets you put our mark on your product and tell a buyer it is genuine.
This document describes the programme. It follows the model the Connectivity Standards Alliance uses for Zigbee and Matter, and the reasoning is the same: a mark on a product is a promise to the buyer, and a promise is only worth what verifies it.
| Word | Made by | What it claims |
|---|---|---|
| Official | TigerSystem itself | A statement of origin: this came from us. |
| Certified | A third party | Audited and validated by TigerSystem. |
| Compatible | A third party | Self-declared. Nobody has checked. |
Official is not a mark that gets granted, because nobody certifies themselves. It is an assertion of origin, and it sits outside the programme described on this page: there is no audit to pass and no authorization to obtain, only the fact of who manufactured the thing.
Official chips — sticker format and carrier refill format — are manufactured by TigerSystem, carry the logo, and ship blank. A reseller of those authentic chips may present them as an official product: they are not applying the mark to anything, they are selling goods that already carry it. What the buyer writes to a blank official chip afterwards is their own business, and does not make the result certified.
The rest of this page is about the other two words — the marks a third party can hold.
| TigerTag Compatible | TigerTag Certified | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | Anything a third party builds and has not had verified | Anything a third party builds and has had verified — hardware or software alike: filament and resin manufacturers, inlay and carrier producers, machine makers, and equally readers, apps, slicers and tools |
| Says | "This works with TigerTag." | "This has been verified by TigerTag." |
| Audit | None | Required |
| Cost | Free | Paid |
| Approval | None. Self-declared | Written authorization |
| Logo and name | Logo in your app, docs, store listing; the name in plain text ("Compatible with TigerTag") on a compatible reader, printer or software | On the chip (any format), the product and the packaging |
| TigerTag+ signature issuance | — | TigerTag+ Certified scope only |
| Product-ID allocation | — | Yes |
| Public listing | — | Yes — in the certified registry |
The line between the two columns is whether anyone checked — not what the product is. Certification is open to anything a third party builds, software included: a reader, a slicer or a mobile app can be certified on exactly the same terms as a spool, by passing the audit and meeting the specification. That is the Zigbee model this programme is modelled on, and it is the intent. Nothing is excluded from certification by category.
| Scope | Covers |
|---|---|
| TigerTag Certified | The product has been audited against the specification and conforms. |
| TigerTag+ Certified | The above, plus verified handling of signed tags — issuing them for a manufacturer, or reading and verifying them correctly for a reader or an app. Signature issuance belongs to this scope. |
If you only read the specification and ship a reader, you need nothing from us. Say
"compatible with TigerTag", show the logo in your interface, sell it commercially. See
TRADEMARK.md. Compatible is self-declared, free, and requires no audit
and no permission — and it will stay that way. Certification is something you may choose to
seek, never something you are made to.
The rest of this page is about the second column.
A buyer who sees the TigerTag logo on a spool must be able to conclude, without checking anything, that the chip is genuine, correctly written, and behaves as the specification promises. That conclusion is the entire value of the mark — to them, and to every certified partner who paid to earn it.
An unverified mark is worse than no mark. It misleads the buyer, and it devalues the partners who did the work.
There is also a legal reason. A trademark owner who licenses a mark without exercising quality control over its licensees risks losing the mark entirely. Auditing is not administrative overhead; it is what keeps the trademark enforceable and therefore what keeps the protocol's promise alive.
Certification is a paid service because auditing costs real work: conformance testing, physical
sample verification, catalogue review, and ongoing surveillance. The fee schedule is provided with
the partner agreement (LICENSE_COMMERCIAL.md).
Contact TigerTag Corp and sign the partner agreement. It covers the trademark licence, signature issuance, product-ID allocation and certified partner status.
Declare, in writing, exactly what you implement: which specification version, which fields you write, which chip types you use, how the tag is applied to the product. This is your statement of intent, and the audit is measured against it.
Physical samples are tested against the conformance suite. The audit verifies that:
- The chip is written correctly — byte-exact against the specification, on every sample.
- The catalogue data is accurate — what the product page says matches what the spool actually is, and you have a process to keep it correct after shipping.
- Signed tags carry valid signatures, issued by TigerTag Corp — in the TigerTag+ Certified scope. An unsigned TigerTag+ is conformant and is not a finding.
- The logo and name appear only where the chip actually is — on the chip, the product and its packaging, nowhere else.
- The tag survives the product — placement, adhesion and readability through the spool's life, in the orientations a customer will actually load it.
You sign it. It states that production units match the audited samples.
On a pass, TigerTag Corp grants:
- the trademark licence — the right to apply the TigerTag logo and name to that product line;
- TigerTag+ signature issuance for your products, in the TigerTag+ Certified scope;
- product-ID allocation in the official catalogue;
- a public listing in the certified registry.
Display obligation. A certified product line must show the TigerTag mark where the buyer can see it — on the chip, the product or its packaging, and, when it is sold online, next to where it is bought. The mark goes only on the product lines listed in the registry, never on the rest of a catalogue. This is the obligation the Connectivity Standards Alliance places on certified Zigbee and Matter products: a mark that only may appear tells the buyer nothing.
Certification is not a one-time event. TigerTag Corp samples the market periodically and re-audits on:
- a new specification version,
- a change to your writing process, tag supplier or chip type,
- a new product line under the same certification,
- a substantiated complaint.
Certification can be withdrawn. When it is, TigerTag Corp stops issuing signatures, delists the partner from the registry, and terminates the trademark licence.
That first consequence is the one that matters, and it is why the programme has teeth: the TigerTag+ signature is issued under a private key held by TigerTag Corp. It cannot be forged, and it cannot be issued by anyone else. Revocation is technically real, not merely contractual.
Chips, inlays, carriers, reader modules and firmware are components: they end up inside somebody else's product. A component that passes the audit is certified as a TigerTag Compliant Platform and may carry the mark on the component itself and its own packaging.
A finished product does not become certified by containing a compliant platform. A spool fitted with certified inlays, or a printer built around a certified reader module, still needs its own certification before the mark goes on the product or its packaging — what was audited is the component, not how the product writes, places or uses it. Using a compliant platform does shorten that audit. The same rule separates Zigbee's Compliant Platform from a certified end product.
Filament and resin are widely white-labelled. If you sell, under your own brand, a product already certified by its manufacturer, you do not repeat the full audit: the certification is transferred, subject to a reduced fee and a listing of its own.
The audited facts do not change. The name on the box does.
Every certified partner and product line is listed publicly. That registry is the only authoritative way a buyer can check whether a logo on a spool is legitimate, and the only way a partner can prove they earned it.
It plays the role the Distributed Compliance Ledger plays for Matter, with the same purpose: verification without trust.
Today the audit is performed by TigerTag Corp. As the number of partners grows, TigerTag Corp intends to authorize independent test laboratories, as the Connectivity Standards Alliance does. We say this plainly rather than imply an independence we do not yet have.
Certification, partner agreements and the fee schedule: licensing@tigertag.io
Nothing on this page is required to implement the protocol. See
LICENSING.md and TRADEMARK.md.