OpenAI Co-Founder and CEO Sam Altman speaks at Snowflake Summit in San Francisco on June 2, 2025.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Pictures Information | Getty Pictures
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday criticized a lawsuit filed by {hardware} startup Iyo, which accused his firm of trademark infringement.
Altman mentioned, in response to the swimsuit, that Iyo CEO Jason Rugolo had been “fairly persistent in his efforts” to get OpenAI to purchase or spend money on his firm. In a submit on X, Altman wrote that Rugolo is now suing OpenAI over the title in a case he described as “foolish, disappointing and unsuitable.”
The swimsuit, earlier this month, stemmed from an announcement in Might, when OpenAI mentioned it was bringing on Apple designer Jony Ive by buying his synthetic intelligence startup io in a deal valued at about $6.4 billion. Iyo alleged that OpenAI, Altman and Ive had engaged in unfair competitors and trademark infringement and claimed that it is on the verge of dropping its identification due to the deal.
OpenAI eliminated the weblog submit in regards to the deal from its web site, after a choose final week granted Iyo’s request for a brief restraining order to maintain OpenAI and its associates “from utilizing Plaintiff’s IYO mark, and any mark confusingly comparable thereto, together with with out limitation ‘IO.'”
“This web page is briefly down attributable to a courtroom order following a trademark grievance from iyO about our use of the title ‘io,'” OpenAI says in a message that now seems on the hyperlink the place the submit had been. “We do not agree with the grievance and are reviewing our choices.”
On X, Altman posted screenshots of emails from Rugolo in search of funding and a transaction involving Iyo’s mental property. Rugolo additionally wished OpenAI to purchase Iyo, Altman wrote.
Rugolo did not instantly reply to a request for remark. However on X, he wrote that “there are 675 different two letter names they will select that are not ours.”
The Iyo swimsuit is amongst a number of authorized challenges going through OpenAI, which is working to evolve its organizational construction to tackle extra capital because it builds out its AI fashions. OpenAI additionally goes up in opposition to The New York Instances in a copyright infringement case, and individually in opposition to Elon Musk, who had helped begin OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 and is now suing for breach of contract.
Iyo is accepting pre-orders for its Iyo One in-ear wearable gadget that accommodates 16 microphones. Ive hasn’t launched particulars about io’s product plans, however Altman instructed The Wall Avenue Journal that io’s inaugural gadget shouldn’t be a smartphone.
Altman wrote in one other Tuesday submit that he needs the Iyo group “the most effective constructing nice merchandise,” and that “the world actually wants extra of that and fewer lawsuits.”
WATCH: OpenAI to purchase Jony Ive’s AI startup IO Merchandise for $6.4 billion
