The beginning of the end of OpenAI might arrive sooner than expected. After announcing that they will trademark “GPT”, the company has faced criticism from different sources. OpenAI is being accused of trying to control the AI market and trying to capitalize on their success.
OpenAI, a technology company founded by Sam Altman, launched a chatbot called ChatGPT back in 2022, which has since become one of the most popular AI solutions on the market. Following the success, OpenAI wanted to protect their brand from potential counterfeits, so they filed for a trademark on “GPT” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
However, the petition was dismissed last week, and the application is still pending. Although the company have released brand guidelines on its website in order to discourage any potential misuse, many still believe that OpenAI is being too possessive with its product. Additionally, the company has also gone down the controversial route of filing a trademark in China, despite the country banning the technology to its citizens.
At the same time, Google is pushing ahead of its competitors to get a foothold in the AI field with the DeepMind and Google Brain projects. But OpenAI is continuing to stay at the top with trademarking their technology. It looks as though OpenAI believes they own the GPT technology, while in reality they are not the first to introduce the idea.
Also, considering that Google has released open-source repositories on Transformers, as well as owning their own patent, trademarking GPT could turn out to be much more than a fight against counterfeiters. As the AI arms race is in full form, it’s unclear if Google will use the opposition period to try and fight OpenAI for the trademark.
Sam Altman is the founding president of OpenAI, a company dedicated to developing and deploying artificial intelligence solutions. He is a renowned entrepreneur and investor and his successes include being the founding partner of YCombinator and co-founder of Optimizely. Sam Altman’s leadership has helped OpenAI make significant contributions to the world, including the development of the successful ChatGPT technology.
