Chinese language AI firm DeepSeek has been accused of IP theft, confronted privateness inquiries in Europe, and has been the goal of an enormous cyberattack. Now, it seems the corporate has a brand new headache on its fingers: a U.S. trademark battle.
On Tuesday, DeepSeek filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) in search of to trademark its AI chatbot apps, merchandise, and instruments. But it surely was a hair too late. Thirty-six hours earlier, another firm had filed for the trademark “DeepSeek”: a Delaware-based firm going by the identify “Delson Group Inc.”
Delson Group asserts that it has been promoting DeepSeek-branded AI merchandise since early 2020. In its utility, the corporate lists its deal with as a house in Cupertino, and its CEO and founder as an individual named Willie Lu.
Lu, who coincidentally graduated from the identical college as DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, Zhejiang College, claims on his LinkedIn profile to be a “semi-retired” consulting professor at Stanford and an FCC advisor. Lu appears to have spent most of his profession within the wi-fi business. Other web pages TechCrunch uncovered via the e-mail deal with listed within the trademark submitting point out Lu’s lectures and coaching programs on wi-fi requirements.
Lu additionally hosts a “DeepSeek” instructional course in Las Vegas on “AI Tremendous-Intelligence,” beginning at $800 a ticket — which options prominently on the website linked in Delson Group’s trademark filing. The web site claims that Lu has “about 30 years’ experience in ICT [information and communications technology] and AI fields.”
When reached for remark on the trademark submitting electronic mail, Lu instructed TechCrunch that he could be prepared to “meet and discuss” in Palo Alto or Saratoga. (This reporter is predicated in NYC.) Lu didn’t reply to a follow-up request.
Josh Gerben, an lawyer and the founding father of Gerben IP, a legislation apply specializing in IP points, known as Delson Group a “trademark squatter.” Trademark squatters register emblems with the intention of promoting them for a revenue afterward — or driving on a model’s success.
Certainly, Lu appears to have a historical past of trademark squatting. A search for “Delson Group” within the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Enchantment Board Inquiry System turns up greater than two dozen disputes between Lu and organizations together with the GSMA, Tencent, and TracFone Wi-fi.
Be that as it might, DeepSeek’s choices are fairly restricted at this juncture. Underneath U.S. legislation, the primary person of a trademark is often thought of that trademark’s rightful proprietor, Gerben famous, until it may be confirmed the trademark was registered in dangerous religion.
“Whereas DeepSeek might probably search a coexistence settlement if they’ll show they function in numerous elements of AI than Delson Group, the U.S. firm has a number of benefits,” Gerben mentioned. “They filed first, they declare earlier use — 2020 versus DeepSeek’s claimed 2023 begin date — [and] they’ve a reside web site displaying AI-related actions, together with coaching occasions.”
Gerben mentioned that Delson Group would possibly even be capable to declare “reverse confusion” resulting from DeepSeek’s speedy rise to prominence, or sue to dam DeepSeek from persevering with to make use of its model identify within the U.S.
“DeepSeek may very well have a trademark drawback in the USA the place there could possibly be this prior rights holder — Delson Group — and that prior rights holder could have an excellent case for trademark infringement,” Gerben mentioned.
It wouldn’t be the primary time an AI firm has run up in opposition to trademark headwinds.
OpenAI didn’t trademark “GPT” final February after the USPTO dominated that the time period was too generic. Over the previous a number of months, OpenAI has also been fighting technologist and entrepreneur Man Ravine for the suitable to make use of “Open AI,” which Ravine claims he pitched as part of an “open supply” AI imaginative and prescient round 2015 — OpenAI’s founding yr.