Apple Denied Trademark For 'Multi-Touch'

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 26, 2011 @04:24PM from the have-to-settle-for-imultitouch dept.

suraj.sun sends this excerpt from MacRumors: "In a decision handed down by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Apple has been denied an application for a trademark on Multi-Touch. ... For trademarks, 'the greater the degree of descriptiveness the term has, the heavier the burden to prove it has attained secondary meaning.' The trademark attorney pointed out that the term 'multitouch' has taken on generic meaning, being used by a wide variety of publications to describe the touchscreen technology on Android phones, tablets, and notebooks."

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Re:Good News by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-26 16:36 · Score: 0, Troll

It's good to see a common sense result come out of the USPTO, I'm really hopeful that with additional funds gained from the recent patent bill the USPTO will be able to reach similarly sane conclusions when bad software patents are files too.
This was not about patents (which Apple richly deserves to own). It was about a Trademark.
I think it is a good thing the Trademark was denied. It has always seemed to me rather loose language to say something is "multitouch". Sure, my ATM screen is also multitouch, but nobody would confuse it with an iPad. Apple needs to figure out a useful name for what they have really achieved and trademark that.