OpenAI Appears to Near Victory in ‘Open AI’ Trademark Lawsuit

A California federal judge signaled she’s leaning towards handing OpenAI Inc. a win in the company’s trademark lawsuit against similarly named Open Artificial Intelligence Inc., which owns the trademark registration for “Open AI”—with a space.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she’s inclined to grant OpenAI’s bid to cancel Open Artificial Intelligence’s registration because the company made a false representation to the US Patent and Trademark Office in its application.

When Open Artificial Intelligence’s counsel, Laura Chapman of Sheppard Mullin, argued the issue should go to a jury because there’s a dispute about intent, Rogers pushed back. “What would be the intent if not defrauding, if you copy and paste something that doesn’t exist and say that it does?” she asked Tuesday during a nearly three-hour hearing in Oakland, Calif. “No other explanation is reasonable, other than you’re trying to get this thing quickly and so you deceive.”

The companies faced off in the US District Court for the Northern District of California over OpenAI’s motion for summary judgment. The decision is likely to turn on whether the court finds Open Artificial Intelligence used “Open AI” as a trademark “in commerce” before OpenAI.

Rogers repeatedly doubted Open Artificial Intelligence’s purported evidence of commercial use, which includes testimony submitted by a friend and landlord of the company’s owner, Guy Ravine. “The point of the trademark protections is to avoid confusion in the marketplace,” she said, and not “oh, I was using this with my buddies, and now I get to sell my rights to this litigation and try to make a lot of money.”

The judge laughed when another Open Artificial Intelligence attorney, Jason H. Wilson of Willenken LLP, contended that traffic to the company’s website qualified as commercial use. Rogers used McDonald’s for an analogy, saying that a consumer seeing the fast food chain but not buying anything doesn’t count as commercial use.

Ravine’s evidence “looks like a bunch of musing,” Rogers said. “If you sit in your garage and you’re making the first computer, until you make it commercial, you’re just sitting in your garage,” she said. Ravine “and some buddies were working on some stuff, but they never made it commercial.”

Long-Running Dispute

The dispute began in March 2015 when Ravine registered the domain “open.ai.” His company applied for the “Open AI” trademark after OpenAI launched in December 2015, which subsequently blocked OpenAI’s 2022 application to register its own mark with the PTO. The agency registered OpenAI’s trademarks for its “blossom” logo, but other applications, including for “OpenAI,” remain pending.

OpenAI sued Open Artificial Intelligence and Ravine in 2023, claiming the domain infringes its trademarks and causes consumer confusion. Open Artificial Intelligence hit back with its own claims of trademark infringement, seeking a declaratory judgment that it’s the rightful owner of the disputed mark and that OpenAI’s mark is invalid.

OpenAI’s attorney, Robert Feldman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, told Rogers that Ravine hired people to concoct evidence of commercial use for the patent office when there was none. “This thing was a fraud from beginning to end,” he said before quickly apologizing for raising his voice.

Rogers acknowledged OpenAI’s commercial use of the mark, saying the company could likely submit “a million” declarations testifying to its use by tomorrow.

Another OpenAI attorney, Margret Caruso of Quinn Emanuel, reiterated that web traffic isn’t enough to show commercial use. “You don’t use it until you use it,” she said, and no one has testified they’ve posted anything on any of Open Artificial Intelligence’s websites other than Ravine’s friends, employees, and people that have given him money.

Rogers didn’t rule from the bench but said “I have what I need” before concluding the hearing.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP also represents OpenAI. Open Artificial Intelligence is also represented by Harris Litigation PC, Arlenbach Legal Inc., Verso Law Group LLP, and Neal & McDevitt LLC.

The case is OpenAI Inc. v. Open Artificial Intel. Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 25-cv-04033, hearing held 7/8/25.