PTO Wants Samsung to Disavow ‘Exclusive Right’ to Use ‘HDR10' Trademark

Samsung must send the Patent and Trademark Office a “disclaimer” by late November saying it makes no claim “to the exclusive right to use ‘HDR10'” apart from the'HDR10 Plus'” term it’s seeking to register as a trademark, the agency said Tuesday in a “priority notice.” Samsung must “disclaim the wording ‘HDR10' because it merely describes a feature of applicant’s goods and services, and thus is an unregistrable component of the mark,” said PTO. HDR10 is in “widespread” use “to refer to the industry standard format used in a wide variety of devices and in connection with streaming services, specifically transmission and streaming of programming in the HDR10 format,” said the notice, which included 27 attachments as evidence. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Thursday. Samsung in March abandoned its PTO application to register HDR10 as a trademark but left its HDR10 Plus application intact (see 1704100061). Weeks later, Samsung introduced “HDR10+” -- albeit with a different spelling from that in its PTO application -- to describe a method of elevating the HDR10 standard by adding “dynamic tone mapping” (see 1704200043). Meanwhile, at the European Union Intellectual Property Office, where Samsung also applied to register HDR10 as a trademark, but hasn't withdrawn that application as it did at PTO, the opposition period on that application expires June 26, agency records show. The office received no oppositions to the application through Thursday, its records show.