OpenAI sues Open AI? In recent years, this AI giant has been involved in a trademark dispute, accusing a company using the trademark Open AI (with a space) and successfully obtaining a court order to temporarily suspend the operation of Open AI’s website in February of this year. They allege that the other party’s brand may confuse consumers and infringe on OpenAI’s rights.
Although Open AI is referred to as a company, it is actually owned by an entrepreneur named Guy Ravine, who does not have formal operations. He not only owns the Open AI trademark but also acquired the coveted open.ai domain name before OpenAI was established, leaving OpenAI with only the option to register openai.com.
Is Open AI a trademark infringement or a coincidence? Why are tech giants advocating for him?
However, the formal lawsuit is titled “OpenAI v. Open Artificial Intelligence.”
In the lawsuit, OpenAI cites an email sent by Ravine to CEO Sam Altman in 2022, stating, “Musk paid $11 million for the Tesla domain and trademark in 2017. And it is well known that OpenAI has the potential to surpass Tesla… So the final value of the domain and brand of OpenAI is substantial.”
The court has also decided to temporarily prohibit Ravine from using the Open AI trademark until the lawsuit is resolved, stating, “The plaintiff’s trademark is related to the most well-known and rapidly popularized AI tools. In comparison, the defendant’s trademark is only related to one website, and it was not operational until shortly before the lawsuit began.”
Former Apple executive Tom Gruber stated that Ravine had been pitching the concept of Open AI at least six months before OpenAI was introduced.
Based on Bloomberg’s report, shortly after the court banned Ravine from using the Open AI trademark, Ravine filed a counterclaim against OpenAI and its co-founders Altman and Brockman in April of this year. He claimed that in 2015, he had attempted to raise $100 million in funding for Open AI and had contacted several tech industry heavyweights, including Google co-founder Larry Page and Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun.
He emphasized in the lawsuit that OpenAI and Open AI did not have a coincidental name collision and claimed that Altman and Brockman stole his ideas. At first glance, this counterclaim seems like the last struggle and unreasonable troublemaking of a fraudster. However, industry insiders have come forward to support him and help him clear his name.
“He (Ravine) is a serious AI entrepreneur,” said Tom Gruber, co-founder of Siri and former Apple executive. Gruber testified that Ravine had pitched Open AI to him at least six months before Altman appeared and even saw him pitching the concept of Open AI to Larry Page.
“He’s not as charismatic as Altman,” Gruber defended Ravine. “But he is intelligent and honest, and he was the first to conceive of and apply for a trademark for his work. Now OpenAI wants to ‘erase him from the story.'”
The story behind Open AI: Anticipating multiple technology trends, creating a sharing platform five years before Airbnb
So who is Guy Ravine, the one who clashed with OpenAI? Like many tech entrepreneurs, he got his own computer at the age of five, started programming at a young age, and first entered the AI field and the entrepreneurial circle in college. He founded a company called iNeed and claimed that Adam D’Angelo, the founder of Quora, had worked at his company.
Bloomberg describes Ravine’s career path as extraordinary. He proposed many technology concepts that had a significant impact: he created a shared room platform called Stayway five years before Airbnb; he believed in electric vehicles and built a single-seater electric car; he created a community platform called We and introduced a video sharing feature later used by Snapchat and TikTok; he even made astute investments in Bitcoin.
Although Ravine did not become a well-known successful entrepreneur, nor did he pretend to be one in an attempt to make money from OpenAI, he emphasizes that he was the one being sued, not the one threatening OpenAI with his trademark. He even allowed the open.ai domain to automatically redirect to OpenAI’s official website, openai.com, for a long time without charging any fees.
Why did the trademark dispute reignite in recent years, nine years after it initially arose? In fact, even though Ravine applied for the Open AI trademark, he did not use it to threaten OpenAI. He kept the open.ai domain name and let it redirect to OpenAI’s website without charge.
Perhaps the rekindling of the trademark dispute can be traced back to 2022 when Altman contacted Ravine expressing interest in acquiring the open.ai domain. In his reply, Ravine stated that he personally didn’t need money and offered to hand over the domain and trademark if OpenAI made a donation to the non-profit AI research institution he was planning.
This reply was also “captured” by OpenAI, mentioning the cost of Musk paying for domain and trademark in the past.
Ultimately, the trigger for the court battle between the two parties was Ravine’s reactivation of the open.ai domain, promoting open AI models on the website and embedding Stable Diffusion, an open-source image-generating AI model, which OpenAI suspected of being misleading. Currently, the open.ai domain can no longer be accessed.
Furthermore, Ravine refuses to hand over the Open AI trademark to OpenAI. In the lawsuit, he mentioned that OpenAI is no longer open and has transformed from a non-profit organization trusted by humans into a closed, profit-oriented entity. The lawsuit also lists events such as a coup within OpenAI, a major shakeup of the board, and the departure of the security team.
Elon Musk has also sued OpenAI for the second time this year, accusing the AI company of violating its founding principles. In response to Musk’s disclosure of the old email, OpenAI suggested that openness was only temporary and that sharing research findings was a means to attract talent in the short to medium term. Additionally, during the period after Ravine filed the counterclaim, it was reported that OpenAI would completely change its structure and transition into a for-profit company, granting Altman a 7% stake.
It may not be easy for Ravine to win in the trademark battle against the current hottest AI company, but through this lawsuit, his story has finally come to light, revealing the existence of an entrepreneur who was dedicated to developing “Open AI” for the benefit of humanity.
Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters
