OpenAI’s ChatGPT efforts to register the term “GPT” as a trademark have failed. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected OpenAI’s request to register “GPT” as a trademark. Thousands queue up to claim the domain name!
Why Can’t People Secure the “GPT” Domain Name from OpenAI?
Despite the high demand, securing the “GPT” domain name doesn’t seem easy, even for OpenAI. The patent office notes that “GPT” is a very general term and could prevent competitors from accurately describing their products as “GPT.”
OpenAI argues in its application that “GPT” is not a descriptive term and consumers do not immediately understand its meaning. However, the patent office emphasizes that consumers’ lack of understanding of what “GPT” means is not significant.
Because “GPT” refers to a general type of software rather than specifically to OpenAI’s products, which use the technology. In recent years, hundreds of artificial intelligence services have added “GPT” to their product names.
“GPT” is Used as a General Term
For example, there is a startup called GPTZero that specializes in artificial intelligence detection. Other companies also refer to basic artificial intelligence models as “GPTs” because these models do indeed have “GPT” features.
The term “GPT” has become closely associated with OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT and AI models GPT-3 and GPT-4. When OpenAI opened ChatGPT to external developers, it also referred to custom chatbots as “GPTs.”
Not OpenAI’s First Application Rejection
Recently, OpenAI has started giving different brand names to other services and recently launched Sora, a text-to-video generation model. It seems the company is slowly moving away from the desire to claim the name “GPT.” Additionally, according to available information, this is not the first rejection of OpenAI’s trademark application for GPT; the first rejection occurred in May 2023.
The company could once again appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to register the “GPT” term as a trademark. What are your thoughts on this matter? You can share your opinions in the comments section below.
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