Trademark tussle silences OpenAI's hype video on Jony Ive-backed device venture

OpenAI’s much-hyped teaser video spotlighting a bold new hardware vision with design icon Jony Ive and CEO Sam Altman has quietly vanished from its website and YouTube, but not because of trouble in paradise. Instead, the video has been pulled due to a legal snag over the name of their hardware startup, io, now at the center of a trademark dispute.

According to Bloomberg, the $6.5 billion partnership between OpenAI and Ive’s LoveFrom design studio is still intact and on track. The issue, it turns out, is branding.

A judge recently issued a temporary restraining order against OpenAI over the use of “io", after a startup named iyO, an Alphabet X spinout developing AI-powered earbuds, claimed potential trademark infringement and consumer confusion. The court has not ruled on the merits, but the order requires OpenAI to remove promotional content that uses the contested name.

OpenAI has acknowledged the legal order, posting a note on the now-defunct announcement page, “This page is temporarily down due to a court order following a trademark complaint from iyO about our use of the name ‘io.’ We don’t agree with the complaint and are reviewing our options.”

The legal dust-up doesn’t affect the broader hardware ambitions, but it does signal how brand identity battles are becoming an unexpected roadblock even for the most well-funded AI ventures.

The original video, an aspirational look at the future of AI-infused devices, co-developed by Altman and Ive, is still viewable unofficially on X, for now. But behind the scenes, the legal fight over two letters could shape what the next-gen AI product is ultimately called and how it's received in an increasingly crowded consumer AI space.

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