"This is silly, disappointing and wrong."

It's only been a month since OpenAI announced its secretive new project with iPhone designer Jony Ive — and already, the partnership is in legal hot water.

As the Associated Press reports, all mentions of Ive and his AI device brand, io, have been removed from OpenAI's website and marketing materials after a judge ruled in favor of Iyo, another AI wearable company that has sued the pair for allegedly stealing its product concepts and trademarked name.

Last month, Ive and Altman made a splashy announcement about their partnership — replete with a head-scratchingly intimate black-and-white photo of the two — that involved OpenAI purchasing io Products for an untold sum of money. As the pair claimed in an interview with Bloomberg, their secretive new venture — which will apparently involve the creation of screenless AI devices with an unknown form factor that see and hear everything you do — is slated to be worth about $6.5 billion.

Amidst Altman and Ive's media blitz, though, a separate company called Iyo — which sells what it refers to as "the world's first audio computer" that operates through AI voice activation — sued Altman, Ive, io, and OpenAI for essentially jacking its idea.

According to Iyo's suit, which was filed in a California district court and also includes that weird photo of Altman and Ive, marketing for io has "caused significant confusion in the marketplace, such that the market is presently confused as to who owns rights to the [trade]mark."

The company also alleges that OpenAI has been aware of its earbud-worn "audio computer" since 2022, and that Iyo not only had meetings with Altman and Ives' representatives, but was also asked outright to "share with them its intellectual property" just before announcing a product that was "eerily similar" to the smaller company's.

As the AP notes, judge Trina Thompson, the jurist presiding over the suit, decided that Iyo had a strong enough trademark infringement case to go to a full hearing in October — and that Ive and Altman should halt their marketing of io until then.

In a statement to Bloomberg, a spokesperson for Ive said the suit was "utterly baseless" and pledged to "fight it vigorously." Altman, meanwhile, said in a post on X that Iyo CEO Jason Rugolo was "hoping we would invest in or acquire his company... and was quite persistent in his efforts."

"Now he is suing [O]penai over the name," Altman tweeted. "This is silly, disappointing and wrong."

At this early stage in the case, it's hard to say which party's spin is correct — but we have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of interesting details could come out in trial discovery later this year. If they don't pay a bundle of cash to make the whole thing go away, that is.

More on OpenAI's legal trouble: OpenAI May Have Screwed Up So Badly That Its Entire Future Is Under Threat


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