The Name That Describes Itself: OpenAI Loses EU Word Mark Fight Across Classes 9, 42 and 45

When Fame Is Not Enough

There is a long tradition in trade mark law of famous names failing the distinctiveness test. 'Treat' for sweets. 'Creamy' for yoghurt. The principle has always been the same: a mark must tell consumers who made a product, not what the product is. On 15 July 2026, that principle was applied at judicial level to one of the best-known brands in technology.

The EU General Court, sitting as the Eighth Chamber, dismissed OpenAI's appeal in Case T-555/25 and confirmed the EUIPO's partial refusal to register the word mark OPENAI. The application, filed with EUIPO in June 2023, covered goods and services across Classes 9, 38, 42 and 45: software, development services, cloud applications and identity verification. The refusal attached to Classes 9, 42 and 45.

The Court's reasoning was stark. For at least a non-negligible share of the English-speaking public, OPENAI immediately conveys the message that the relevant goods and services are provided using, or are connected with, openly accessible artificial intelligence. In short: the sign describes a characteristic of what it sells. That is precisely what Article 7(1)(c) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation is designed to prevent from being monopolised.

Class by Class, the Problem Compounds

For brand owners, the class-level granularity matters. The General Court found that all software and services in Classes 9, 42 and 45 can, as a matter of fact, be powered by or based on freely accessible AI, and that this possibility is sufficient, even where the goods or services also serve other purposes.

Class 45 (legal and security services, identity verification) sits at the centre of this analysis. It is also the class most directly relevant to the legal-services economy in the UK. According to AI Business Dispatch analysis of Companies House and IPO data (as of July 2026), UK Class 45 trade mark filings have fallen sharply: just 448 filings were recorded in 2026-Q3, down 71.8% on the prior period. The same data shows 145 new SIC 69.10 companies incorporated in 2026-Q3, a decline of 79.4%. More striking still, 96.8% of active SIC 69.10 companies hold no Class 45 trade mark whatsoever, a protection gap that the OpenAI ruling makes newly urgent to address.

A company operating in legal or professional AI services that has chosen a name built around the letters 'AI', or words like 'open', 'smart' or 'intelligent', now has clear, court-tested guidance that such a name may simply not be registrable as a word mark in the EU, regardless of how widely the brand is known.

The Reputation Argument That Failed

OpenAI pressed three grounds of appeal. It argued that the sign lacked descriptiveness, that it had acquired distinctiveness through widespread use, and that the EUIPO had previously registered comparable marks and should be bound by equal treatment principles. All three failed.

On acquired distinctiveness (the route by which a descriptive sign can still reach the register if it has come to identify one commercial source in the minds of consumers) the Court left the door ajar. A separate acquired-distinctiveness claim remains available for later review, and OpenAI may yet pursue that path with consumer-recognition evidence. The company may also appeal to the European Court of Justice. The Court was unambiguous, however, that registrations in more than thirty other countries did not control the European Union's independent assessment.

The OpenAI logo, which incorporates the word, is separately registered as a figurative mark and is unaffected. Protection of the word itself is the contested ground.

This is not an isolated episode for OpenAI at EUIPO. In October 2025, the Office's Cancellation Division declared the GPT, GPT-3 and GPT-4 word marks entirely invalid and GPT-5 partially invalid, finding that 'GPT' had become a generic technical descriptor for a language model architecture and stripping Class 9 and Class 42 protection in the process.

The Naming Problem Is Structural

The AI sector has a branding habit that runs directly against trade mark doctrine. Most first-time AI founders pick descriptive names because they are easier to explain to investors. Those names are also the ones most likely to be refused. The EU General Court has now confirmed that even a globally famous company, with hundreds of millions of users and representation across thirty jurisdictions, cannot cure a descriptiveness objection through reputation alone, not at the stage of inherent registrability.

UK-based businesses face a further dimension. Since September 2026 the UKIPO has been piloting AI tools to help manage non-traditional mark filings, and the 2026 edition of the Nice Classification, NCL 13-2026, has introduced new terminology covering AI-powered platforms. The EUIPO's 2026 Guidelines, in force since 1 July, similarly require that any specification referencing 'virtual goods' be precise about what those goods actually are. The direction of travel is clear: more precision, less reliance on broad or descriptive language.

For legal-services businesses operating under SIC 69.10, where AIBD data shows the vast majority hold no Class 45 mark at all, the OpenAI ruling is a reminder that name selection and registration are not the same exercise. You can use a name. That does not mean you can protect it.

What Brand Owners Should Do This Week

If your AI-related brand name contains a direct reference to what your technology does ('open', 'smart', 'intelligent', 'AI', 'GPT' or similar) check your current EU and UK registration status now. A figurative mark incorporating those elements may be registrable even where the word mark alone is not. Evidence of acquired distinctiveness through consumer surveys, market data and commercial use can still provide a path to registration, but that evidence needs to be built proactively, not assembled retrospectively when an examiner objects.

For fresh applications, the most durable strategy remains the oldest one: choose a name that functions as an identifier rather than a description. Invest in distinctiveness from the start. Consult a qualified trade marks attorney and run your specification against the IPO register before committing to a brand. TrademarkDashboard (trademarkdashboard.com) screens against absolute-grounds risks including descriptiveness before you file, precisely the type of early-stage check that the OpenAI case illustrates cannot be left until the courtroom.