On Thursday, Apple and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) told a Virginia federal courtthat they’ve settled Apple’s lawsuit challenging the office’s rejection of its application for a federal trademark covering the term “Smart Keyboard.”
The two sides said in a joint filing that they had resolved the dispute in principle.
The PTO rejected Apple’s bid for a federal trademark for its Smart Keyboard – an iPad cover that also functions as a keyboard and stand – in 2018. The office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board upheld the decision in 2021, finding the phrase was a generic term for “technologically advanced keyboards.”
Apple appealed to the Virginia court last year. It argued “Smart Keyboard” was a distinctive trade name for its accessory and said the office has registered hundreds of other “Smart” trademarks including Apple’s own “Smart Cover,” “Smart Case,” and “Smart Connector” marks for iPad accessories.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Smart Keyboard for iPad (9th generation) retails for $159, but it’s currently available for $132.99 (16% off) via the Apple Store on Amazon here.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
I suspect the reasoning to deny the other two ‘components’ of KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) the “Smart” prefix as a trademark will be similar. If you think of the examples Apple has given “Smart Cover”, “Smart Case”, “Smart Connector”, each of the items w/o the ‘Smart’ prefix would be rather ambiguous. Just hearing ‘Cover’, ‘Case’, ‘Connector’, even in the narrowed context of computing will bring up multiple images. The KVM group however brings up images of a specific type of device for each of ‘Keyboard’, ‘Video (Display); and ‘Mouse’.