Feb 29 (Reuters) – Artificial-intelligence giant OpenAI has convinced a California federal court to preliminarily block another company’s use of the trademark “Open AI” in commerce.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in a ruling on Wednesday, opens new tab that Open Artificial Intelligence Inc’s branding was likely to confuse consumers and violate OpenAI’s rights.
“Plaintiff’s trademark is associated with perhaps the most renowned artificial intelligence tools currently in use and, quite quickly, became ubiquitous,” Rogers said. “Defendants’ trademark, by contrast, is associated with a website that, until shortly before this litigation commenced, was inoperable at best.”
A spokesperson for Open Artificial Intelligence and its founder, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Guy Ravine, said on Thursday that they are evaluating their options and disagree with the ruling, “given that we have operated as Open AI on open.ai since April 2015, eight months before OpenAI was even a figment of a company.”
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
OpenAI sued Open Artificial Intelligence and Ravine in August, and alleged that they applied to register an “Open AI” trademark the day after OpenAI announced its founding in 2015 to “sow consumer confusion.”
Open Artificial Intelligence owns the website “open.ai,” which currently hosts an AI-powered text-to-image generator. Rogers said the site was redesigned shortly before OpenAI filed the lawsuit to look “remarkably” like OpenAI’s website.
