Apple files suit after patent office refuses to grant trademark for augmented reality software

Apple has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Virginia against the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) over its refusal to grant a trademark for its augmented reality tools.

The company has argued that its augmented reality software development tools “Reality Composer” and “Reality Converter” should be trademarked. The agency said these phrases are not clear enough to warrant federal trademark protection.

In its lawsuit, Apple argued that the phrases were coined by the company, are “classic thought-provoking terms” and “sound like sci-fi impossibilities.” The company argued that the language was suggestive, as Burger King is a fast food chain and not an actual monarch.

Apple said in its lawsuit that it “combines two contradictory terms into a single mark that requires imagination to make any real sense, a characteristic of suggestive marks.”

Apple is asking a Virginia court to reverse the USPTO’s decision. We argued that “Reality Composer” was a creative name for this tool, since composers are usually related to music rather than technology, and our competitors don’t use them. Apple claimed that it “requires imagination and a little thinking” to understand how “Reality Converter” relates to his Apple products.

The company added that the USPTO “also has registered dozens of trademarks” for realistic phrases “used in connection with software products.”

Apple said it has used the expression “exclusively for over four years” since Reality Composer was announced in June 2019 and Reality Converter was announced in January 2020.

This tool allows developers to create augmented reality content for Apple apps. This is a key part of the company’s latest launch, the Vision Pro headset.

Turkish company ZeroDensity rejected Apple’s trademark application, arguing that it should not receive a federal trademark. That’s because they simply describe the software’s functionality and cause confusion with its own products that include “Reality” in the name, wrote Reuters, which first reported the lawsuit.

Apple argued in its lawsuit that ZeroDensity’s efforts are “baseless” and that there is “no possibility” that its products would be confused. Additionally, the USPTO granted ZeroDensity the “RealityHub” trademark without requiring any additional explanation to establish a secondary meaning, it added.

The USPTO has not commented on the lawsuit.