CHATGPT Describes Being Refused as a Descriptive Trademark

In February, OpenAI OpCo, LLC, received a final refusal of its trademark application for CHATGPT. The deadline for OpenAI to respond to the refusal is in August. Like any good law blogger, I gave CHATGPT the following prompt: “Write a blog post about the CHATGPT trademark being refused as merely descriptive and OpenAI’s effort to […]

Apple vs. APPLE – The Spectrum of Trademark Distinctiveness

A real apple next to the Apple logo on a computer

During a recent discussion with a non-lawyer about trademarks, I explained the so-called “spectrum of trademark distinctiveness” and used APPLE as an example of an arbitrary mark. The person responded, “Wait, you can trademark that?”. The question caught me off guard since I assumed everyone knew that APPLE was arguably the most valuable trademark in […]

As Generic as Apple Pie

It’s Fourth of July Weekend! Or should I say, “Happy Birthday ‘Merica!” You probably already know you cannot register a generic term for a product or service. In other words, you cannot use a trademark registration to prevent others from using the term “apple pie” to refer to apple pie. But did you know that […]