USPTO refuses Tesla Robotaxi trademark as “merely descriptive”

"We are an AI, robotics company," Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced last April. Despite the fact that the company's revenues are overwhelmingly derived from selling new electric vehicles, such prosaic activities hold no luster for the boss. Instead, Tesla's future, according to Musk, depends upon a (claimed) sub-$30,000 driverless two-seater, revealed to the world last October in a staged demonstration on a film set. But Musk's plans just hit a snag: The company must find some new names.

As spotted by Sean O'Kane at TechCrunch, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has informed Tesla that it will not be allowed to trademark the word "robotaxi" to describe the vehicle. According to the USPTO, the term is far too generic. Indeed, a Google n-gram search shows a steady growth in the use of "robotaxi" starting more than a decade ago.

According to the USPTO, the term is merely descriptive. The agency cites evidence from Wikipedia, The Verge, and the Amazon-backed autonomous vehicle startup Zoox in its denial of Tesla's trademark application.

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