China denies OpenAI's GPT-5 trademark application

Chinese regulators have denied OpenAI’s application to trademark GPT-5 in mainland China.

The China National Intellectual Property Administration’s Trademark Office rejected the request, and the decision is now pending appeal.

This follows previous refusals in 2023 for trademarks on ChatGPT and several GPT model names.

The US Patent and Trademark Office also rejected OpenAI’s filings for ChatGPT and GPT in February 2024, saying the terms describe features of the technology rather than distinctive brands.

OpenAI’s products, including ChatGPT, are not officially available in mainland China or Hong Kong.

Local users access these services through VPNs or third-party apps, while developers rely on proxies to bypass restrictions.

Experts said the generic nature of the term GPT makes trademark approval difficult in China.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ OpenAI faces a global trademark challenge rooted in technical terminology

China’s rejection of the GPT-5 trademark reflects a broader pattern affecting OpenAI worldwide, not just regulatory hostility from Beijing.

The US Patent and Trademark Office issued a final refusal of OpenAI’s ChatGPT trademark application in February 2024, citing that the name is “merely descriptive”1.

This stems from GPT being an established technical acronym for “generative pre-trained transformer,” a widely used term in AI development that describes the underlying technology rather than identifying a specific brand source.

The consistency of rejections across different jurisdictions suggests OpenAI’s trademark troubles stem from fundamental naming choices rather than geopolitical tensions, as both American and Chinese regulators cite the same descriptive nature concerns.

2️⃣ Foreign tech companies face systematic trademark vulnerabilities in China’s first-to-file system

OpenAI’s trademark struggles illustrate broader challenges foreign companies encounter in China’s intellectual property landscape, where timing often trumps prior use.