UHDA's Filmmaker Mode Trademark Clears PTO Hurdle

The Patent and Trademark Office approved for publication the UHD Alliance's application to register Filmmaker Mode as a certification mark for compliant TV sets, agency records show. PTO is scheduled to publish the application for opposition July 13. If no dissenters protest it in the 30-day opposition period, the application proceeds to the next level of approval but won't earn a registration certificate until UHDA files a statement of use attesting to Filmmaker Mode's commercial deployment. The May 2019 application traveled a bumpy road through PTO after an examining attorney refused the trademark last year on grounds that it was "not inherently distinctive" under U.S. case law (see 2010160030). Filmmaker Mode, introduced in August 2019, is the uniformly named, ease-of-access TV picture setting free of the image processing that creators disdain for rendering content in the living room as if it was shot on high-speed video rather than film (see 1908270001). Filmmaker Mode has the support of Hisense, Kaleidescape, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, TP Vision and Vizio.