The iPad mini is one of Apple’s biggest successes to date, but that doesn’t matter to the US Patent and Trademark Office, which has turned down Apple’s request for a trademark on the iPad mini because it is “merely descriptive.”
According to the BBC, the USPTO turned down Apple because the iPad mini name did not create a unique meaning.
The ruling, which was handed down in July, said the “applied-for mark merely describes a feature or characteristic of applicant’s goods”.
The terms “mini”, “pad” and the “i” prefix were all descriptive, according to the USPTO.
Apple can — and doubtlessly will — challenge the ruling until July. But it may not make a difference.
Looking at Apple’s own list of registered trademarks, Apple has seemingly never been granted a trademark for any product with the name “mini”… for example, the Mac mini or (now defunct) iPod mini.
Seems like the USPTO likes all its patents to be maxi-sized.
Source: BBC
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
One response to “Apple’s Trademark On The iPad Mini… DENIED!”
Um no, the USPTC doesn’t care about that. If you’d looks anywhere else, you’d see it’s actually that apple was asking for the exclusive rights to a commonplace word, and patents don’t allow that. Apple can’t change people money every time anyone uses the word mini, that would just be silly.