OpenAI, the artificial intelligence technology company, has recently generated headlines after attempting to quickly trademark the acronym “GPT.” The company applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in December for their proprietary chatbot, ChatGPT, which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer.” This announcement followed a flurry of developments in AI technology but OpenAI was looking to secure its brand and protect itself from a possible onslaught of GPT clones (such as TruthGPT, a chatbot reportedly created by Elon Musk). Unfortunately, the patent office dismissed the company’s request last week, leaving them on par with everyone else in the industry – to wait out the process.
Jefferson Scher, chairman of the intellectual property group Carr & Ferrell’s trademark practice group, estimates that OpenAI may have to wait up to five months before receiving their trademark. Though the T in GPT stands for “Transformer”, which is the same name used by Google in its neural network unveiled in 2017, OpenAI still remains hopeful that the trademark will be granted.
ChatGPT has seen its fair share of success so far. Researchers from Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology released findings that 14% of employees using the tool saw a significant increase in productivity with even the least experienced and skilled workers completing tasks 35% faster. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman got the rumor mill churning even more after revealing that ChatGPT-5 will not be made available anytime soon.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 by tech moguls Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others. The company is based in San Francisco and its mission is to create human-level artificial intelligence safe and beneficial to humanity. By pioneering a new approach to artificial general intelligence and continually improving existing AI technologies, OpenAI is determined to make advancements in this field.
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI and has an impressive background that includes vast experience in AI. Altman has an Electrical Engineering degree from Harvard University, having served as President of Y-Combinator, a start-up accelerator and venture capital investor. His wealth of knowledge and experience in technology have no doubt helped fuel OpenAI’s success.