Chinese language AI firm DeepSeek has been accused of IP theft, confronted privateness inquiries in Europe, and has been the goal of an monumental cyberattack. Now, it seems the corporate has a brand new headache on its fingers: a U.S. trademark battle.
On Tuesday, DeepSeek filed an utility with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) searching for to trademark its AI chatbot apps, merchandise, and instruments. But it surely was a hair too late. Thirty-six hours earlier, one other agency had filed for the trademark “DeepSeek”: a Delaware-based firm going by the identify “Delson Group Inc.”
Delson Group asserts that it has been promoting DeepSeek-branded AI merchandise since early 2020. In its utility, the corporate lists its deal with as a house in Cupertino, and its CEO and founder as an individual named Willie Lu.
Lu, who coincidentally graduated from the identical college as DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, Zhejiang College, claims on his LinkedIn profile to be a “semi-retired” consulting professor at Stanford and an FCC advisor. Lu appears to have spent most of his profession within the wi-fi business. Different internet pages TechCrunch uncovered by means of the e-mail deal with listed within the trademark submitting point out Lu’s lectures and coaching programs on wi-fi requirements.
Lu additionally hosts a “DeepSeek” instructional course in Las Vegas on “AI Tremendous-Intelligence,” beginning at $800 a ticket — which options prominently on the web site linked in Delson Group’s trademark submitting. The web site claims that Lu has “about 30 years’ experience in ICT [information and communications technology] and AI fields.”
When reached for remark on the trademark submitting e-mail, Lu informed TechCrunch that he could be keen to “meet and discuss” in Palo Alto or Saratoga. (This reporter relies in NYC.) Lu didn’t reply to a follow-up request.
Josh Gerben, an lawyer and the founding father of Gerben IP, a legislation apply specializing in IP points, referred to as Delson Group a “trademark squatter.” Trademark squatters register logos with the intention of promoting them for a revenue in a while — or using on a model’s success.
Certainly, Lu appears to have a historical past of trademark squatting. A seek for “Delson Group” within the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Attraction Board Inquiry System turns up greater than two dozen disputes between Lu and organizations together with the GSMA, Tencent, and TracFone Wi-fi.
Be that as it might, DeepSeek’s choices are fairly restricted at this juncture. Below U.S. legislation, the primary consumer of a trademark is usually thought-about that trademark’s rightful proprietor, Gerben famous, except it may be confirmed the trademark was registered in unhealthy religion.
“Whereas DeepSeek might doubtlessly search a coexistence settlement if they’ll show they function in numerous features of AI than Delson Group, the U.S. firm has a number of benefits,” Gerben stated. “They filed first, they declare earlier use — 2020 versus DeepSeek’s claimed 2023 begin date — [and] they’ve a reside web site exhibiting AI-related actions, together with coaching occasions.”
Gerben stated that Delson Group may even be capable to declare “reverse confusion” attributable to DeepSeek’s fast rise to prominence, or sue to dam DeepSeek from persevering with to make use of its model identify within the U.S.
“DeepSeek may very well have a trademark drawback in the US the place there could possibly be this prior rights holder — Delson Group — and that prior rights holder could have an excellent case for trademark infringement,” Gerben stated.
It wouldn’t be the primary time an AI firm has run up towards trademark headwinds.
OpenAI didn’t trademark “GPT” final February after the USPTO dominated that the time period was too generic. Over the previous a number of months, OpenAI has additionally been preventing technologist and entrepreneur Man Ravine for the precise to make use of “Open AI,” which Ravine claims he pitched as part of an “open supply” AI imaginative and prescient round 2015 — OpenAI’s founding yr.
