Where do we post questions of a legal nature? I know these are more technical forums, but as developer's we can still have quite a lot of questions regarding what is and isn't permissable.
My interest stems from a question I have regarding the use of (AppKit's) NSRunningApplication's icon property that returns an image of that third party app's icon. Does this mean we are allowed to display these app icons in our app if you can justify its usage is valid and beneficial to the user of your app?
>we can still have quite a lot of questions regarding what is and isn't permissible.
If you're looking for a pre-review, which you seem to be, know they are not available...you need to run the review gamut just like the rest of us. Keep in mind that app review isn't here and no one here can promise what App Review will/won't accept reject. See the App Review Guidelines 5.2 Intellectual Property
If your goal is actionable dialog, aka free legal advice you'd risk being criticized for taking... Given you can only expect the opinions of strangers here, none of which approach legal validity, devForums isn't the place at all. Note the lack of a 'legal' forum here may not be the result of casual intent.
If you want true legal advice, hire an attorney. You get what you pay for here. For Best Results - Read the Label
Otherwise, use theApp Store forum perhaps.
>Does this mean we are allowed to display these app icons in our app if you can justify its usage is valid and beneficial to the user of your app?
My opinion, no. Rephrased without the subjective 'if'; same opinion, no. Could you make a legal argument and win, no; my opinion is that you could not make a legal argument. Apple expects the dev to show proof-of-rights to use should they be requested. If you had rights, you'd not be asking, without such rights, attempting to rationalize IP theft is just as wrong as the theft itself.
If there are devForums structural changes you'd like to see, feel free to file an enhancement request via the bug reporter link, below.
Good luck.