First, applicant argues that the mark is not merely descriptive because consumers will not immediately
understand what the underlying wording "generative pre-trained transformer" means. The trademark
examining attorney is not convinced. The previously and presently attached Internet evidence
demonstrates the extensive and pervasive use in applicant's software industry of the acronym "GPT" in
connection with software that features similar AI technology with ask and answer functions based on
pre-trained data sets; the fact that consumers may not know the underlying words of the acronym does
not alter the fact that relevant purchasers are adapted to recognizing that the term "GPT" is commonly
used in connection with software to identify a particular type of software that features this AI ask and
answer technology. Accordingly, this argument is not persuasive.
It's like calling a laptop "Laptop v3.5". They decided to name their product on the literal technology they use which was just a bad idea from the start, and is still causing confusion to this day when open source models are also called GPT.
So... iPhone?
iPhone is like ChatGPT. But trying to trademark GPT would be like trademarking "Phone"
iPhone is a bit different. Rather than just being the object name, they incorporated said object name into their naming style. OpenAI were trying to trademark GPT - the literal name of the technology they were using.
Like trying to trademark “CellPhone”!