Guideline 5.2: intellectual property
5.2 covers using things you do not have rights to, and it catches four recurring shapes.
1. Someone else's trademark in your metadata. A competitor's name in your app name, subtitle or keyword field. Common, deliberate, and easily found.
2. Content you did not create or license. Scraped data, third-party media, a dataset with terms you did not read. This is the version most often reported by the rights holder after release rather than caught in review.
3. Implying affiliation. Logos, "official", branding that reads as endorsement rather than description. Saying your app genuinely works with a named service, factually, is a different thing from looking like that service made it.
4. The dependency-shaped one, which is the RN-specific version. A package that bundles icons, fonts, sounds, datasets or code under a licence you have not read. Shipping it means you are distributing it, and the obligations travel with the binary regardless of who added the dependency.
The asymmetry that matters: rejections cost a cycle. An IP claim after release can take the app down while it is outstanding, and it is resolved between the parties rather than by Apple. Prevention here is much cheaper than the alternative, which is not true of most guidelines.
The metadata case
The most common and the most avoidable.
# your own trademark exposure, in store metadata and UI strings
grep -rniE 'jobber|housecall|uber|doordash|instagram|tinder|hinge|bumble|spotify|whatsapp' \
fastlane/metadata store src app 2>/dev/null | head -20Then, for each hit, ask a narrow question: am I using this word to describe a fact, or to claim the term?
"Import your DoorDash earnings" describes a function. Putting a competitor's brand in your keyword field claims the term, and that is the one that gets rejected. Guideline 2.3.10, other-platform references.
Naming a competitor editorially on your own website is a different context from store metadata, and the two get conflated. A comparison page that cites the competitor's own published pricing, with a date, is ordinary commercial writing.
The dependency case
The one people do not audit, because it does not feel like an IP question.
# licences actually present in the tree
npx license-checker --summary 2>/dev/null | head -30
# copyleft and attribution-required licences worth reading
npx license-checker --json 2>/dev/null | \
grep -iE '"licenses": "(GPL|AGPL|LGPL|CC-BY|SSPL|BUSL)' | head
# bundled media, which is where the unlicensed things hide
find node_modules -maxdepth 3 \( -name "*.ttf" -o -name "*.otf" -o -name "*.mp3" \
-o -name "*.wav" -o -name "*.svg" \) 2>/dev/null | head -20Fonts and icon sets are where this bites hardest. A font with a licence that does not cover app embedding, or an icon set requiring attribution you did not provide, is shipping in your binary and is your obligation, not the package author's.
Attribution-required licences need a visible acknowledgements screen. Many apps that owe one do not have one, and building it is an afternoon.
The AI-generated content wrinkle
An app that generates images, text or audio inherits questions about the model's training and the rights in its output, and those questions are unsettled in several jurisdictions.
What is settled enough to act on: generating something that reproduces a recognisable protected work or brand is a problem regardless of how it was produced, and "the model made it" is not a defence anyone should plan around. If your app can generate a logo, a character or a style someone owns, that path needs guarding.
Related: Guideline 5.1.2 on third-party AI services and Guideline 1.2 on user-generated content, because AI output is treated as content your app is responsible for.
Before you submit
Three questions with honest answers:
- Does anything in my name, subtitle, keywords, screenshots or description use someone else's mark?
- Is any content in the app content I did not create and cannot point to a licence for?
- Have I read the licences of the packages that ship assets?
The third takes twenty minutes once and then only on a dependency change.
Where it sits
| Guideline | Concern |
|---|---|
| 5.2 | Rights in content, brands and services |
| 2.3.10 | Other-platform references in metadata |
| 4.3 | Near-duplicate apps in a saturated category |
| 1.2 | Safeguards for content users and models produce |
shipcheck reports the licences present in your dependency tree, flags bundled fonts and media, and finds third-party marks in store metadata and UI strings. It is not legal advice and it does not tell you whether a use is permitted, which is a lawyer's question. What it checks. · After a rejection.
More in this section
About shipcheck
shipcheck is a pre-submission checker from Baker Ventures LLC that runs inside Claude Code. It reads your React Native or Expo project, finds the things that get apps rejected or blocked at upload, cites the exact App Store Review Guideline or Google Play policy clause, and names the file and line to fix.
It exists because React Native and Expo apps fail for reasons that are invisible in the code you wrote: capability arriving through a dependency, purpose strings added by a config plugin, a privacy manifest missing from an SDK you never chose directly, and a generated ios/ directory that discards your edits on the next prebuild. shipcheck checks what the binary and the config actually declare, not what you intended. The rejection references on this site are free, need no account, and link to the primary Apple or Google document for every claim.
Questions and answers
What does App Store Guideline 5.2 cover?
Intellectual property. Using content, brands, trademarks or services you do not have rights to, including third-party names in your app name or keywords, unauthorised use of another service's API or data, and apps built around content you did not create or license.
Can I use a competitor's name in my keywords?
Using another party's trademark in your app name, subtitle or keyword field without authorisation is a common cause of a 5.2 rejection. Editorial comparison on your own website is a different matter from claiming the term in store metadata.
Can my app say it works with a named platform?
Describing genuine compatibility factually is generally different from implying endorsement or affiliation. What draws attention is prominence, a logo, and phrasing that reads as official rather than descriptive.
What about scraped content?
An app whose core value is someone else's content, retrieved without permission, is squarely what this guideline addresses. It is also the version most likely to be reported by the rights holder after release rather than caught during review.
Can a dependency cause a 5.2 problem?
Yes. A React Native package that bundles icons, fonts, sounds or datasets can carry a licence you have not read, and shipping it means you are distributing it. The licence obligations travel with the binary.
What if I receive a complaint after release?
Apple provides a dispute process for the parties involved and expects developers to resolve rights issues directly. The practical position is that an unresolved claim can remove your app while it is outstanding, which makes prevention much cheaper than the alternative.
shipcheck. “Guideline 5.2: intellectual property.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://shipcheck.bakerventuresstudio.com/rejections/guideline-5-2-intellectual-property/