OpenAI has taken down online content related to its recent deal with Sir Jony Ive’s hardware startup, io, after a trademark complaint.
The artificial intelligence company has removed promotional materials including a video where Ive – the former Apple designer behind the iPhone – and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, discuss the $6.4bn (£4.8bn) transaction. However, the nine-minute film can still be viewed on YouTube.
OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, was forced to act after receiving a legal complaint from iyO, a startup that makes AI-backed earbuds.
OpenAI said it had taken down a page on its website announcing the company’s acquisition of io, which will involve Ive’s company taking on creative and design leadership across the combined businesses. The dispute does not affect the deal itself, OpenAI added.
Jony Ive and Sam Altman in their promo video. Photograph: YouTube
“This page is temporarily down due to a court order following a trademark complaint from iyO about our use of the name ‘io’. We don’t agree with the complaint and are reviewing our options,” said an OpenAI spokesperson.
Ive left Apple in 2019 after a 27-year career as one of the technology company’s foremost product designers.
The io deal video mapped out Ive and Altman’s far-reaching ambitions for the transaction, which was announced last month. Ive, who was born in the UK and whose design credits include the first iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air, Apple Watch and AirPods, said: “I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this place, to this moment.”
Altman said in the video that he had been trying out a prototype Ive device and added: “I think it is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen.”
The fruits of the Ive-OpenAI partnership are not expected to emerge until next year. According to reports, the AI-enabled device will be “unobtrusive” and capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life. It will sit on a user’s desk and complement a MacBook Pro and an iPhone, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Although Ive has expressed regret about the “unintentional” negative impacts of smartphone use, Altman has said the new venture does not plan to eliminate the iPhone.
“In the same way that the smartphone didn’t make the laptop go away, I don’t think our first thing is going to make the smartphone go away. It is a totally new kind of thing,” Altman told Bloomberg in May.
iyO has been contacted for comment.
