3 ms·
They're going to have to clear a pretty big hurdle in establishing a trademark once it's been out in commerce for so long. But let's assume that they do. I act
by icyfox 3y ago
They're going to have to clear a pretty big hurdle in establishing a trademark once it's been out in commerce for so long.
But let's assume that they do. I actually think this will prove to be a good move for the ML ecosystem over the long term. There are so many products branding themselves as "[Vertical]GPT" that many non-technical users are under the illusion that the solution is endorsed by the same people that make ChatGPT. People in the tech circle knows that OpenAI isn't pushing out "DogBarkGPT" but with the shared suffix that's not immediately obvious. Their suggested "powered by GPT" is a much more honest phrasing.
While being too aggressive about brand guidelines and usage patterns can unintentionally harm innovation and competitors, I don't think encouraging others to stay away from capturing the phrase credibility is a bad idea.
- reaperman 3y agoMaybe using a term of art for a brand name was a terrible idea to begin with. "Bard" makes sense. "GPT" is a bad name.
- PeterisP 3y agoI get a feeling that this wasn't planned, that this "just happened" after the release of ChatGPT and by that time it was obvious that "GPT" was the brand people were talking about and you can't simply turn the tide. The trademark application was from december 2022, after the release of chatGPT. If they wanted to use GPT as a brand name, they'd have filed the trademark before that, perhaps back in 2020 when the GPT-3 trademark application was submitted without trying to also trademark "GPT" as such.
- jacquesm 3y ago> I get a feeling that this wasn't planned, that this "just happened" after the release of ChatGPT and by that time it was obvious that "GPT" was the brand people were talking about and you can't simply turn the tide. That's their problem though. Trying to trademark a well known term of art that you didn't even come up with is a very bad trick.
- PeterisP 3y agoI don't think that this is a "well known term of art" - IMHO in all the articles of last year and earlier (so before the trademark application and chatGPT proliferation) when I've seen "GPT" used it was always in reference to one of the specific OpenAI models, not to something else.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- renewiltord 3y agoThe value is in its use. Everyone knows ChatGPT. Nobody knows Bard.
- Uehreka 3y agoIANAL, but I don’t know that that would actually be a hurdle. As I understand it, you can apply for a trademark on a name long after you start using it, if you can prove that the word has become associated with your product in its industry. It’s just riskier to wait, since in the meantime a competitor could try to blur the mark by naming their product similarly to yours, and you’d have no way to stop them if they succeeded in getting a lot of mindshare.
- nomel 3y agoAnd, they can be revoked long after a trademark is received, through genericide [1]! This was even tested with "google" [2]. [1] https://www.bentley.edu/news/popular-brands-had-their-trademarks-revoked-law#:~:text=The%20thermos%2C%20yo%2Dyo%2C,in%20a%20court%20of%20law https://www.bentley.edu/news/popular-brands-had-their-tradem.... [2] https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/google_retains_its_trademark_though_the_name_is_used_as_a_verb_appeals_cour https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/google_retains_its_t...