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OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

dpa-international.com

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Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#171

Post by saghm »

csh0 wrote: post #148
sardukardboard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone on HN knows what OpenAI is, but there are tons of people who use ChatGPT and either don’t know OpenAI or don’t know the distinction between OpenAI (the company) and OpenAI (the conjunction of two words)

I literally had a non technical family member ask me last week about “AI”. He began the conversation by saying: “so as far as I know there’s two kinds of ai, open ai and closed ai…” This speaks to your point, the people are confused.

I mean, he's not wrong! As long as you use lowercase letters for "open", of course

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#172

Post by saghm »

mbreese wrote: post #108
sardukardboard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone on HN knows what OpenAI is, but there are tons of people who use ChatGPT and either don’t know OpenAI or don’t know the distinction between OpenAI (the company) and OpenAI (the conjunction of two words)

The linguistic gymnastics required when talking about OpenAI vs ChatGPT and Anthropic vs Claude is difficult when you're giving talk about them. At least Google vs Gemini is a little clearer. I mean, I get the rationale Company vs. Product, but most people know the product. As in "I used ChatGPT". But if you ask who OpenAI is, they'll have no clue. ChatGPT is in someways nicer... because their models are GPT-5.3, GPT…

> But when you're trying to explain that the Anthropic models are called "Opus" or "Sonnet" or "Haiku" or "Fable", but you use them in "Claude", it gets confusing quickly.

"Why is your French coworker helping you write literature? I thought you worked in software"

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#173

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

anigbrowl wrote: post #121
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember the company behind either Monster Cables, or Monster energy drinks, going after anyone that used the word “monster,” even in casual context.

Every large company does this to some extent, because thre's a concept in US trademark law that if you don't aggressively and pre-emptively defend your mark then 'constructive abandonment' becomes a valid defense against infringement. That means people can rip off your trade mark and then say in court 'well, I thought he company had given up ownership of the trademark because they didn't sue 'monster plush toys', so…

> Lawyers will argue that if you don't aggressively police the bounds of your intellectual property at all times then it evaporates.

Can't help to notice that in this case lawyers tell companies to buy more lawyer time.

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#174

Post by inigyou »

munk-a wrote: post #132
a012 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UnicornAI. You’re welcome

An excellent example of something that clearly wouldn't be distinctive since all AI related endeavors bill themselves as unicorns.

It doesn't actually mean anything though, so I think it would pass as a trademark. Apple Computer is allowed because Apple doesn't mean anything in relation to computers. You might have trouble with Mouse Computer unless you were the company that invented or popularized the mouse.

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#175

Post by mrtnmcc »

em-bee wrote: post #137
mrtnmcc wrote: post #49

We had a similar result when a big U.S. defense company (Kratos) tried to take our open source project's domain name: open.space The panel ruled in our favor, that their OPENSPACE trademark is probably invalid because it is descriptive. https://domainnamewire.com/2026/04/08/u-s-defense-contractor...

but you changed the name anyways, why?

This UDRP panel only had jurisdiction over domain name disputes. They still threatened going to court over trademark and we had more important things to do. The new domain is https://ScaleRF.com/

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#176

Post by nottorp »

GuB-42 wrote: post #86
nottorp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trademarks are first intended to protect consumers Huh? I thought they're intended to protect "innovation".

I think you are confusing trademarks with patents. Trademarks don't prevent you from copying anything, they only prevent you from being misleading regarding the origin.

Thats innovation. "innovation" is the usual justification of companies for their consumer hostile moves.

Re: OpenAI loses trademark dispute at EU court

#177

Post by LocalH »

murderfs wrote: post #126
LocalH wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the idea of trademarks that are so well-known that they apply in all fields. That doesn't serve the public. Companies that well-known can easily apply for a trademark across multiple fields. The trademark owners that would really need that kind of help are the smaller ones that aren't eligible for that, and must specifically register in various fields of industry. IP law needs severe reform no matter whi…

But what's the alternative for the trademarks that are truly universally known? Does it serve the public for me to be able to sell unauthorized Coca-Cola brand products, or more likely, the trademark owner selling a token item in each category to maintain the right to prevent others from using it?

Trademarks that well known can easily afford to file in every possible category. They don't need a special "this trademark is so known, it applies everywhere by default" status
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