TL;DR
- A weblog submit saying OpenAI’s $6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive’s {hardware} startup “io” has been taken down on account of a court docket order stemming from a trademark grievance by an organization referred to as iyO.
- OpenAI clarified that regardless of hypothesis, the partnership with Ive remains to be ongoing, and it’s exploring choices concerning the identify dispute.
- iyO, which already sells an AI-powered “audio laptop,” claims the “io” identify infringes on their trademark.
All traces of OpenAI’s much-hyped {hardware} enterprise with legendary Apple designer Jony Ive have all of the sudden disappeared on account of a court docket order triggered by a trademark grievance. A weblog submit that when sat prominently on OpenAI’s web site was pulled with out warning, briefly displaying a 404 error (h/t Max Weinbach). Naturally, this sparked hypothesis that the partnership between Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Ive had fallen aside. However the firm has since clarified that’s not the case.
In a discover now posted on its web site, OpenAI says the weblog submit saying the $6.5 billion deal between Ive’s startup “io” and OpenAI was taken down “on account of a court docket order following a trademark grievance from iyO about our use of the identify ‘io.’ We don’t agree with the grievance and are reviewing our choices.”
The now-removed weblog submit from Altman and Ive acknowledged: “The io workforce, targeted on growing merchandise that encourage, empower, and allow, will now merge with OpenAI to work extra intimately with the analysis, engineering, and product groups in San Francisco.”
So who’s iyO? It’s an organization that has already made an AI system able to working pure language apps, suppose the now-defunct Humane AI Pin. The corporate calls its system an “audio laptop,” however at its core, it’s principally an AI-powered earbud.
We’ll now have to attend and watch who wins the rights to the “io” identify and if OpenAI and Ive will likely be pressured to rebrand due to the lawsuit.