The Northern California District Court accepted iyO's request for a temporary injunction, preventing OpenAI and Jony Ive's new hardware venture from using the io brand. Here are the details.

A bit of background information

Last year, Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced that they would join forces under a new venture called io to develop AI-powered products.

Shortly thereafter, a company named iyO filed a lawsuit claiming trademark infringement. iyO obtained a temporary injunction that required OpenAI to remove all references to the newly established venture from the web.

In the following weeks, iyO and OpenAI presented several documents showing that the companies had communicated before the io announcement, including product promotions.

OpenAI argued that some of these communications contained unsolicited information and investment requests from iyO, while iyO recently updated its lawsuit to claim that trade secrets had been stolen.

Meanwhile, iyO also presented the results of a consumer survey to the court, arguing that the similarity of the brands could lead to confusion among customers if OpenAI were to launch products very similar to its own.

OpenAI claimed that its first product would not be an AI-powered wearable device and requested the court to dismiss the case, stating that it no longer had plans to use the io brand this year.

And today, we are here.

The court sided with iyO

In a ruling made yesterday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson accepted iyO's request for a temporary injunction, preventing OpenAI from using the io brand.

Judge Thompson was not convinced by OpenAI's voluntary decision to abandon the io brand and raised questions about the company's likelihood of reusing the brand in the future.

If OpenAI truly does not plan to use the brand, she added, an injunction should not make a difference, but if it does plan to use it, it would protect iyO.

She also noted that iyO has a "high probability of success in the Trademark Infringement case" and acknowledged that iyO could continue to suffer "irreparable harm such as being unable to find new investors, depletion of its funds, and usurpation of its brand value."

You can read the full decision below:

Decision Text

Following the temporary injunction, the case is now moving into a deeper discovery process. In another ruling made yesterday, Judge Peter H. Kang ordered both parties' attorneys to meet regarding ongoing discovery disputes and report back to the court "no later than May 29, 2026."