OpenAI has taken down promotional content about its $6.5 billion Jony Ive hardware deal after a court‑ordered trademark dispute halted use of the “io” name.
A video that was the subject of much discussion, promoting the camaraderie between CEO Sam Altman and the legendary Apple designer Jony Ive (as well as OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Ive and Altman’s device startup io) has been removed from the company’s website and YouTube page.
Does this imply an issue with the acquisition or the intentions for Ive to lead the design work at OpenAI? According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the agreement is “on track” and has not been dissolved or otherwise affected.
Instead, he stated that a judge issued a restraining order regarding the io name, necessitating that the company remove all materials that utilized it.
OpenAI subsequently verified this by updating the old announcement page with the following statement: “This page is temporarily down due to a court order following a trademark complaint from iyO about our use of the name ‘io.'” We are currently in the process of evaluating our options and are not in agreement with the complaint.
The company stated that the agreement with io is not affected by this.
The iyO was the first product announced from the Alphabet X “moonshot factory.” It is a set of generative AI-powered earbuds.
In an earlier report published by Bloomberg Law, it was noted that iyO had filed a trademark lawsuit against OpenAI. The judge indicated that she is amenable to the company’s argument that OpenAI’s promotional video may be causing consumer confusion.
The video is currently accessible on X.
Confirmation from OpenAI has been incorporated into this post.
