Samsung applied to register “Quantum Engine” as a trademark for a class of “software for controlling the brightness of television displays,” says its Oct. 17 filing (serial number 87648529) at the Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung filed a similar application (serial number 017322611) for "Quantum Engine" Oct. 12 at the EU Intellectual Property Office, agency records show. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Monday.

Samsung’s August 2016 application to trademark a promotional tagline for the twice-recalled Galaxy Note7 smartphone was published for opposition Tuesday at the Patent and Trademark Office, said an agency confirmation notice. If no opposition to “Note7 the Smartphone That Thinks Big” within 30 days, PTO will register the trademark by mid-January. Samsung Electronics America in March ruled out offering refurbished Note7s for commercial availability in the U.S. after its South Korean parent announced plans to market Note7s with reconditioned batteries as replacement or rental in several global markets to minimize environmental impacts from recalls of the fire-prone smartphone (see 1703270067).

Samsung's application to register "HDR10" as a trademark remains actively pending in its native South Korea, say records of the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service. Samsung filed the Korean application (serial number 4020170030838) March 9, virtually the same date it filed similar applications to register HDR10 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the EU Intellectual Property Office (see 1703140049), the records show. Samsung pulled its PTO application about three weeks after filing it there (see 1704100061), but let the application stand at the EUIPO, which initially cleared it for approval. EUIPO, acting on an LG protest that HDR10 is a generic term that’s in widespread industry use, later reversed its decision, forcing Samsung to pull the application weeks before the opening of the IFA show in Berlin (see 1708230030). Samsung didn’t comment Friday. Samsung’s applications to register the trademark “HDR10 PLUS” remain actively pending with Korean, EU and U.S. trademark authorities, albeit with a different spelling than the “HDR10+” platform that Samsung, Fox and Panasonic said just before IFA that they plan to begin licensing as an open, royalty-free high dynamic range standard with dynamic metadata in 2018 (see 1708280018). The three companies said they will try licensing the HDR10+ platform under a different name.

Samsung’s application to register “HDR10" as a trademark with the EU Intellectual Property Office cleared a hurdle Monday when the three-month opposition period expired with no dissents, EUIPO records show. Samsung’s application at EUIPO to register “HDR10 Plus” also cleared its opposition period Monday with no dissents, records show. Samsung abandoned its application March 31 at the Patent and Trademark Office to seek U.S. trademark protection for HDR10, but left its HDR10 Plus application intact (see 1704100061). That application awaits a Samsung statement of “disclaimer” at PTO by late November disavowing any claim to the “exclusive right” to use HDR10 apart from the HDR10 Plus trademark it still seeks to register because HDR10 already is used ubiquitously for consumer TVs and media devices (see 1705240059). Samsung's South Korean parent has been silent on why the company abandoned its HDR10 application at PTO, only to leave it in force at EUIPO. “Sanity had prevailed,” John Adam, Samsung U.K. head-business development and industrial affairs, told the SES Ultra HD conference last week in London (see 1706260039) of his parent company’s decision withdrawing its HDR10 application at PTO, apparently unaware the application for the same trademark was still active and progressing through EUIPO.

Samsung sought U.S. trademark protection Thursday for the tagline it’s using to promote “The Frame” a day before announcing Father’s Day availability of the TV lifestyle product that’s designed to look like finished art (see 1703140059). Samsung wants to register the phrase “the most beautiful TV you've never seen” as a trademark consisting of “standard characters, without claim to any particular font style, size, or color,” said its Patent and Trademark Office application.

Samsung applied June 7 for U.S. trademark protection on a pair of images of an armor-clad warrior with no accompanying wording to be used on a class of products that include monitors, TV sets, speakers and headsets, Patent and Trademark Office records show. One application (serial number 87479515) is for an image depicting the upper body of a character wearing armor, partial face mask and hood. The other filing (87479449) depicts the same character whose head “is slightly turned to face the left,” the application said. Samsung filed similar applications five days earlier with South Korean trademark authorities, PTO records show. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Tuesday.

Six months after Sony used CES to introduce its first OLED TVs (see 1701050004), it sought U.S. trademark protection for the proprietary audio technology called Acoustic Surface the company is building directly into its OLED screens. Sony filed a June 1 application at the Patent and Trademark Office to register Acoustic Surface for TVs, speakers and other applications, agency records show. Sony “asserts a claim of priority” to the Acoustic Surface trademark, based on an application (number 2016-145699) filed with Japanese intellectual property authorities on Dec. 28, a week before CES, PTO records show. Sony officially launched its OLED TVs at a Los Angeles-area event last month (see 1705010056).

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.

Samsung abandoned its bid at the Patent and Trademark Office to register “HDR10" as a trademark for a wide range of possible commercial and consumer devices and applications (see 1703140049), PTO records show. Samsung’s March 31 "express abandonment" request gave no reason for the application’s withdrawal. Samsung left intact its application to register “HDR10 Plus” as a trademark, agency records show. “HDR10" has been in routine, ubiquitous industry use as standard nomenclature for perceptual-quantization-based, SMPTE-compliant high-dynamic-range products and service since at least the summer of 2015. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Monday on whether that affected the company's decision to withdraw the application. Nor did they comment on plans to use "HDR10 Plus" in commercial products if PTO approves that trademark application.

Samsung applied in a single day March 22 to register seven U.S. trademarks for its 2017 quantum-dot-based QLED 4K TV lineup (see 1703140059), including some for product features or promotional catch-phrases the company already has begun using in commerce, Patent and Trademark Office records show. All the would-be trademarks consist of “standard characters, without claim to any particular font, style, size, or color,” said the various applications, including one to register the term, “The Next Innovation in TV,” Samsung’s umbrella tagline for the QLED TV line launch. Three other applications were to register terms or phrases also already in commercial use for Samsung's 2017 QLED TV marketing effort: (1) “Studio Stand,” Samsung’s name for the optional QLED TV floor mount that positions the TV easel-style like a work of art; (2) “Art Mode,” the setting on Samsung’s forthcoming Frame TV that turns the set’s panel into framed artwork when it's not being used for entertainment; (3) “Every seat is a great seat,” Samsung’s promotional terminology to trumpet the QLED TV’s wide viewing angle. Three remaining applications were for QLED TV catch-phrases that Samsung hasn't yet debuted, or at least were nowhere to be found when we searched the company’s various ad and promotional materials: (1) “All shades of color brought to life,” Samsung’s apparent nod to QLED TV’s claimed color performance, which the company says is comprised of “more than a billion shades and 100% color volume”; (2) “Gorgeous minimalistic design from every angle,” a reference to what Samsung calls QLED TV’s “no-bezel design and clean back finish” that make the sets “look gorgeous front to back, whether mounted on the wall or sitting on a stand”; (3) “Ultimate details as directors intended,” an obvious tagline to trumpet Samsung claims about QLED TV’s outstanding picture quality. In promotional materials, the company describes QLED TV’s 4K HDR Elite feature as delivering “elite contrast and expanded color detail, even in the brightest and darkest areas in any scene,” while a 4K Elite Black function “unveils outstanding blacks, bringing new life to dark scenes.”