The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has decided to not give Apple an application for a trademark on Multi-touch. To put this in perspective, Apple applied for the trademark on January 9, 2007, the same day the original iPhone was introduced.
It goes without saying that a USPTO lawyer turned down the initial application, and Apple then decided to appeal it, and in turn, the Appel board upheld the decision.
The main reason Apple was denied a trademark for Multi-touch is due to the lack of specificity the term carries in recent years. Originally, the term was synonymous with the iPhone, but with competitors such as Android, the term “multi-touch” has been used to describe their technologies as well, giving Apple less leverage when filing for a trademark.
On the other hand, a list of items can be checked off to assure that a term has “acquired distinctiveness”. Things such as sales success, length and exclusivity of use, and advertisements. Apparently the board felt that Apple didn’t have enough of any of those things to grant them a trademark.
Decision posting courtesy of MacRumors.
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TAGS: multi touch, Patent
