OpenAI Had Notice of Open AI Trademark Since 2017, Say Defendants in Trademark Case

Plaintiff OpenAI alleges the defendants have infringed on its OpenAI trademarks since Ravine filed his trademark application for Open AI in December 2015, “nearly eight years ago,” said the accompanying memorandum of points and authorities. The complaint “provides no excuse for belatedly commencing” the August lawsuit, and moving for injunctive relief Sept. 29, “because there is none,” defendants said. OpenAI “omits from its Complaint” that it received actual notice of defendants’ use of their “Open AI” trademark from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) several times since Jan. 5, 2017, when the PTO first alerted OpenAI to defendants’ “then-pending trademark application for the ‘Open AI’ mark," said the memorandum. After the publication of Ravine’s Open AI mark on Aug. 1, 2017, OpenAI received two additional notices of “Nonfinal Office Action from the PTO refusing to register Plaintiff’s ‘OpenAI’ trademarks because of the likelihood that these marks will be confused with Mr. Ravine’s registered trademark,” the filing said. OpenAI, having had notice of defendants’ trademarks since January 2017, “cannot now claim that there is any purported emergency that justifies the extraordinary award of preliminary injunctive relief in advance of an adjudication or trial on the merits of its claim,” said the memorandum. OpenAI’s request for preliminary injunctive relief can’t survive as a matter of law, so the court should grant defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismiss the request for injunctive relief, said the memorandum.