Sonos apparently used enhanced secrecy to secure the Sonos Beam trademark for the smart soundbar it debuted last week (see 1806060043), Patent and Trademark Office records show. Sonos applied June 5 to register the U.S. trademark, says its PTO application (serial number 87949684), a day before it introduced the product at a San Francisco launch event. The company previously claimed foreign priority for the Sonos Beam name by filing a trademark application in December with the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, said the PTO application. Legal experts say the Jamaican agency can be a good first stop for applicants seeking trademark registrations with minimal public disclosures because local trademark law bars the office from publishing any documents on the application without applicant consent. The agency also lacks a searchable online database containing information on applications or existing trademarks, they say. Sonos didn’t comment Monday. The company is accepting preorders on the Sonos Beam, available July 17 at $399.

CTA likely will fall back on one of several alternative logos as a certification mark to identify reputable over-the-counter devices compliant with the ANSI/CTA-2051 standard for consumers with mild or moderate hearing loss, Brian Markwalter, senior vice president-research and standards, told us at last week’s Technology and Standards Forum in Santa Clara, California. CTA’s first application to register the logo ran into roadblocks at the Patent and Trademark Office when examiners ruled the logo bears striking similarity to a Bose trademark for a headphone listening app (see 1803040001). PTO gave CTA a July 24 deadline to defend the application, which was still active at the agency Tuesday. “It’s a process,” Markwalter told us. CTA unveiled the logo last year at a convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America. CTA President Gary Shapiro is scheduled to keynote this year’s HLAA convention June 21 in Minneapolis, opening a session to be sponsored by the CTA Foundation (see 1803090011).

Sony’s Tokyo parent applied Thursday to register for U.S. trademark protection a logo for a wide range of possible commercial uses, including on GPS devices, smartphones and smartwatches, Patent and Trademark Office records show. The logo consists of a stylized letter "S" within a circle, with the middle of the letter bearing a solid circle and the ends of the letter bearing solid squares, says the application. Sony didn’t comment.

LG’s corporate parent in Seoul filed a string of trademark applications March 12 in South Korea and the U.S. to protect a range of financial services under the names of four of its key subsidiary companies, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Separate applications were filed seeking trademark registrations for LG Electronics Fund, LG Display Fund, LG Chem Fund and LG Uplus Fund. Besides LG Electronics, which makes and markets home electronics, home appliances and mobile phones, and LG Display, which produces and supplies LCD and OLED panels, LG Chem is the large chemicals company and LG Uplus the South Korean wireless carrier. LG representatives didn’t comment.

Sony applied Wednesday to trademark two logos for Sony Hall, the live-music venue it’s opening this spring with Blue Note Media Group in the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Sony seeks trademark protection for one vertical logo, one horizontal, for the 12,000-square-foot venue it announced with Blue Note in January. Blue Note will run the facility, which will be “integrated” with Sony technologies and will host performers in all musical genres, the companies said.

​CTA’s October application to register as a “certification mark” the logo it designed to identify reputable over-the counter devices for consumers with mild or moderate hearing loss (see 1710170016) ran into roadblocks at the Patent and Trademark Office when examiners ruled the logo bears striking similarity to a Bose trademark for a headphone listening app, agency records show. CTA applied to register the logo to identify OTC hearing aids that meet minimum performance requirements as specified in the ANSI/CTA-2051 standard approved about a year ago. PTO examiners refused the application on grounds that the CTA logo is “sufficiently similar” to a logo for which Bose landed a trademark registration certificate on Jan. 16 and is using commercially to promote its Bose Hear listening-enhancement app to U.S. consumers through the App Store and at Google Play. When paired with specific models of Bose “Hearphones” headsets, the app “makes live listening better” by letting the user reduce noise or amplify softer sounds or adjust the “microphone arrays” on each earbud to make conversation clearer from the direction one wants, say Bose promotional materials. The CTA and Bose marks “create the same general overall commercial impression because the marks share the same appearance and connotation created by a similar ear and sound wave design,” said the PTO examiners. “The likelihood of confusion is increased in this case because the goods and/or services are closely related.” PTO examiners gave CTA a July 24 deadline to respond to the refusal letter. CTA didn’t comment on its next course of action. CTA unveiled the logo at a convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America and formally announced the logo June 22, which happened to be the day Bose applied at PTO to trademark the Bose Hear logo. The Bose logo has been in commercial use since “at least as early as” Nov. 28, 2016, said the application. Bose representatives didn’t comment.

Sony appears to have overcome Patent and Trademark Office objections to its application to register the trademark "Acoustic Surface" for the proprietary audio technology it’s building directly into its OLED TV screens (see 1706060070). PTO notified Sony Friday that its application is scheduled to be published for opposition March 20, meaning the application can proceed to the next stage toward registration if no outside party raises objections within 30 days. A PTO examiner rejected the application in a July 13 notice, saying Acoustic Surface would cause market confusion with Microsoft’s pending application to register the Surface tablet trademark. Microsoft landed a registration certificate Jan. 30 for the Surface. Sony, in a Jan. 18 reply, amended its application with a disclaimer that it seeks no “exclusive right” to use the word “surface,” so that the word “acoustic” would be the “dominant feature” of the Acoustic Surface trademark. Sony also argued Acoustic Surface is “sufficiently different” from Microsoft’s Surface “in sound, meaning, appearance and commercial impression, and that its goods are sufficiently distinct, so as not to conflict with” the Surface tablet, said the company. Sony thinks “there is room for the coexistence” of Acoustic Surface and Microsoft's Surface, it said.

​Samsung in recent weeks filed four separate applications to register variations of "QLED" as U.S. trademarks, Patent and Trademark Office records show. The company filed applications Jan. 11 to register “8K QLED” and "Micro QLED," relating to two innovations it showcased at CES. On Jan. 26, Samsung filed two more applications to register separate “QLED TV” logos, one with a gold stylized font with black, brown and white highlights and gray shadowing, the other without the shadowing. Samsung’s recent trademark activity in support of the QLED TV technology it launched at 2017 CES (see 1701040074) follows unsuccessful LG attempts to register the QLED trademark for its own commercial purposes. Yet LG has shunned the quantum-dots technology on which QLED TV displays are based. PTO examiners rejected LG’s December 2014 application on grounds that QLED as a stand-alone term was too generic for registration for a class of goods that included TVs. PTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the examiners when it rejected LG’s appeal of that refusal in an Oct. 20 decision, though it gave LG the go-ahead to register QLED as a supplemental trademark -- one with fewer legal teeth than a principal trademark registration -- and on the condition it wasn’t to be used for commercializing TVs. PTO approved the application for publication on Jan. 18, meaning outside parties would have 30 days to file oppositions once it’s published in PTO’s Trademark Gazette. LG and Samsung representatives didn’t comment.

Samsung applied Friday for a U.S. trademark registration for what appears to be a promotional tagline for the “no-gap” wall mount it introduced with its QLED TV lineup at the last CES that lets the set hang flush against the wall (see 1701040074). The proposed trademark, in a play on the safety warnings customarily given to those who commute by train, consists of the words "DON'T MIND THE GAP" in block lettering with the words "NO-GAP WALLMOUNT" directly below in the same block lettering, said Samsung’s application at the Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung also supplied no-gap wall mounts with shipments of the Frame, the lifestyle TV product it introduced later in 2017 (see 1703140059). Samsung didn’t comment Wednesday on how or when it plans to commercialize the new tagline.

Sony applied to register “Master Series” as a trademark for a line of TV products, said the company’s Dec. 4 application at the Patent and Trademark Office. It’s unclear if Master Series bears any relation to the Backlight Master Drive technology Sony introduced at CES two years ago (see 1601060049) or if Sony plans to introduce Master Series TVs at next month’s CES. Sony representatives didn’t comment Friday. Sony’s CES news conference is scheduled for Jan. 8 at 5 p.m.