Apple denied Multitouch trademark

In an interesting ruling just handed down last week from the USPTO, Apple has been denied the usage of the term "Multi-Touch" as a trademark, at least in the United States (they're still arguing for it in other countries).

In short, the reason for the denial is that the term has become to generic and is merely descriptive of a feature but does not meet the criteria of "acquired distinctiveness", which is determined by such things as sales success, length and exclusivity of use, and advertising expenditures. Evidently, the ruling board did not think Apple met the requirements, which is an interesting if not surprising decision. For everyone else in the smartphone business, they can now breathe a little lighter knowing "Multi-Touch" as a term is not Apple owned.

Note: For clarification, Apple still has a patent on Multitouch, but not the trademark.

Source: MacRumors

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.