The startup founder claims that Elon Musk steals the name “Grok”

Illon Musk faces capabilities Brands On the name Chatbot, GROK. The company’s brand request was suspended with the US Patent and brands office after the agency asked that the name can be confused with two other companies, AI Chipmaker Groq and Grokstream software. Now, a third technical company called Bizly claims to have the rights of “Grok”.

This is not the first time that Musk has chosen the name of one of its products that other companies say was circulated first. Last month, the social media platform in Musk A lawsuit was settled By a marketing company that it claimed has exclusive rights in the name of X.

Bizly and Xai seem to have reached Grok independently. Bizly Ron Shah’s founder said he reached him during a brainstorming session with a colleague who used the word as a verb. (The phrase “To Grok” is used frequently in the technical circles to mean “to understand”. “We have become enthusiastic, high -tender, the name!”

Musk He said He named Chatbot after a term used in the science fiction novel of 1961 Strange in a strange land, According to the Indian newspaper. Imagine the author Robert A. “Grok” as a word in the dictionary of Mars, which also means “understanding”.

Shah says he applied to the brand name Grok in 2021. Advertise to him With the same name. “It was one day I will never forget,” says Shah. “I woke up and looked at my phone, and there were a lot of messages from friends saying,” Did you get Elon? It was a complete shock to me. “

Shah insists on Exai on his brand. But under American law, trademark regulations were designed primarily to protect consumers instead of companies, says Josh Genben, founder of GERBEN IP, a law firm that focuses exclusively on brands. “The goal is that there is no confusion about who is behind a product or service,” he says.

For example, the former musk partner GRIMES Also a brand The name of the Plushe AI ​​game that works with the same AI, but this app is completely different from the software tool, which reduces the possibility of mixing them for consumers. “Details are important,” he says. “What does the original Grok do, and what does this new do? Do they work on the same trade channel?”

In the case of bizly, the answers to these questions are somewhat mysterious. One of the requirements for registering a brand is that the owners You need to prove that it is used to sell goods or services in at least two states. Uspto also allows people to provide a brand to reserve rights to a name before the launch of business, but they cannot actually register it until the jewelry website is fully expanded or the Pizza Parlor series extends to a neighboring case.