OpenAI has filed a trademark application for its o1 AI model to protect its intellectual property. On Tuesday, the company submitted paperwork to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register the name "OpenAI o1." Notably, OpenAI had previously filed for a trademark in Jamaica in May, well before the public release of o1.
The trademark application is still under review by the USPTO, and the office has not yet granted approval. According to the USPTO’s online database, the application is awaiting assignment to an examining attorney.
o1 is OpenAI's first "reasoning" model, designed to perform complex tasks. Unlike other models, reasoning models can fact-check themselves by spending more time analyzing queries. This ability helps them avoid common issues faced by many AI models.
This move marks another step in OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to protect its innovations. The company has filed for around 30 trademark registrations, including for names like “ChatGPT,” “Sora,” “GPT-4o,” and “DALL-E.” However, OpenAI's attempt to trademark “GPT” was unsuccessful earlier this year when the USPTO ruled the term too generic, as it was already in use by other companies and in different contexts.
While OpenAI has not been aggressive in asserting its trademarks, one significant case involved a legal dispute with entrepreneur Guy Ravine. Ravine claimed to have pitched the name "Open AI" as part of an open-source AI project in 2015. In response, OpenAI filed a lawsuit, and a federal circuit court recently ruled in its favor, suggesting that OpenAI is likely to win the case.
