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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has abnegate OpenAI ’s attempt to brand “ GPT , ” prevail that the term is “ merely descriptive ” and therefore unable to be registered . It ’s a blow to OpenAI ’s stigmatization , but do n’t expect its competitors to start let go their own version of the ubiquitous chatbot .
ChatGPTis surely the most recognisable brand in AI right on now , being the most popular colloquial model on the market and the one that most visibly took expectant language fashion model from curiosity to spherical trend .
But the name , according to the USPTO , does n’t meet the standards to register for a trademark and the protections a “ TM ” after the name affords . ( Incidentally , they refused once back in October , and this is a “ FINAL ” in all cap denial of the software . )
As the defence text file set it :
Registration is reject because the apply - for mug merely discover a feature , subroutine , or characteristic of applicant ’s goods and service .
OpenAI argue that it had popularized the term GPT , which stand in this case for “ generative pre - check transformer , ” describing the nature of the political machine learning model . It ’s procreative because it produces new ( ish ) material , pre - train in that it is a with child model trained centrally on a proprietary database , and transformer is the name of a finical method of building AIs ( discovered by Google researchers in 2017 ) that allow for much larger example to be trained .
But the patent office pointed out that GPT was already in use in numerous other setting and by other companies in related ones . For instance , Amazon has a itemization for what a GPT is and how they use them .
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The literary argument from the letters patent side is that GPT draw an facet of the product . Like if you had a grain called Crunchy O ’s , and tried to brandmark “ crunchy . ” In the case of ChatGPT , this is a GPT - type AI role model — a concept OpenAI did not make , and is not alone in offering — that you chat with . It may be recognisable , but it does n’t meet the requirements for trademarking .
It may be that this want of a trademark will dilute OpenAI ’s dominance over GPT - related terminology . you could await things like a “ TalkGPT , ” no coition , to show up in app stores ( indeed they are already there , and legion ) — and OpenAI ca n’t litigate them for using their firebrand .
That said , OpenAI does have the big mindshare by far when someone enounce “ GPT , ” so although their legal protections are limited , they retain the first - brander advantage . If anything they may double down on the GPT branding , trademarks be anathemise , to verify everyone sleep with that OpenAI did it first ( or come together enough ) .
