U.S. Government Denies Apple Request For Multitouch Trademark

While the Apple iPhone ushered in the age of multitouch devices many other products now offer “multitouch” technology and that fact has led the United States Patent and Trademark Office this week to deny the company’s trademark claim.

The final decision to deny the claim was made by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the USPTO when they determined that “multitouch” had taken on a generic term much like “aspirin” and “thermos.”

Here’s what a trademark attorney said of the offices decision

Thus, from the foregoing, we find that “multi-touch” not only identifies the technology, but also describes how a user of the goods operates the device. Based on the evidence discussed above, as well as other evidence in the record, we agree with the examining attorney that MULTI-TOUCH indeed is highly descriptive of a feature of the identified goods. We now consider whether applicant has submitted sufficient evidence to establish acquired distinctiveness of this highly descriptive term.

The original trademark was filed on January 9, 2007.

Do you think Apple should have been awarded the trademark? Given how broken the U.S. Trademark system has already become I’m glad to see that they were denied the naming rights to such a generic term. In any case this filing had more merit than the New York Man who was recently awarded the patent for building snow men.

[via MacRumors]