Trademark & Branding
ChatGPT Trademark Registration on Shaky Ground
Alloy Newsletter:
Insights into the intersection of AI, Law, and Business.
On March 4, 2026, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled against OpenAI on its application for the trademark "CHATGPT."
The TTAB upheld the USPTO examiner's refusal that "ChatGPT" was merely descriptive. This is because a trademark registration cannot be granted to marks that merely describe the products or services. Here, the examining attorney found that "ChatGPT" was merely a description for a Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) that one chats with.
However, the trademark application will still proceed based on OpenAI's claim that ChatGPT has acquired secondary distinctiveness under Section 2(f).
Bottom line: OpenAI will still get its ChatGPT registration, but on terms that signal the mark's descriptive nature to the world. Given how ubiquitous the term has become (so many people are building "chat GPT-based" products) enforcing it broadly against descriptive third-party use will be an uphill battle.
Moral of the story: loop your trademark counsel into the product branding discussions early and often!
