A newly publicized document from November of last year shows that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has suspended Tesla’s application for a trademark on the term “Cybercab.”
Quick but important detour before I continue: Is the public aware at this point that there’s even a difference between the Tesla terms “Robotaxi” and “Cybercab”? As a savvy consumer of tech news, you, the person reading this, are no doubt aware that Robotaxi is the name of Tesla’s app, used to hail self-driving rides, while Cybercab is—ostensibly—the name of an as-yet-unreleased Tesla car model without a steering wheel or pedals, meant to eventually be part of the Robotaxi program. Some inferior minds, however, might find this naming system messy.
Anyway, as if Tesla’s taxi-related glossary of terms wasn’t already enough of a headache, another naming problem may soon be piled on: a French hard seltzer company may have the name “Cybercab” all to itself, and according to Electrek, that’s because Tesla goofed up, creating a preventable mess for itself, seemingly out of haste and sloppiness.
As Electrek’s story notes, even Elon Musk himself used the terms “Cybercab” and “Robotaxi” interchangeably at the 2024 Tesla event announcing the Cybercab, and the company didn’t own either trademark yet. It may never own either one.
Techcrunch claimed in May of last year that Tesla had waited until the day of its 2024 announcement to attempt to trademark “Robotaxi” and “Cybercab” (and also “Robobus,” for good measure”). Electrek’s story contradicts this slightly, more on which in a moment. Tesla had its entire plan to trademark “Robotaxi” thrown out by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because robotaxi is a generic term, Techcrunch reported last year. And yes, robotaxi very much is a generic term. Amazon’s Zoox division, maker and operator of its own self-driving thingamajig, carries the slogan “It’s not a car. It’s a robotaxi built around you” right at the top of the page at Zoox.com.
So Tesla really needs to be able to trademark “Cybercab,” one assumes, so it can at least trademark something in this space.
But according to Electrek, Tesla announced the Cybercab name on October 10, 2024, and submitted its official application for a trademark at some point in November of that same year—no less than three weeks later. During that gap on October 28 the French beverage company Unibev applied for a trademark for a vehicle named “Cybercab.”
“Trademark squatting,” I’m informed, is where an entity registers a trademark similar to an existing trademark, or registers a trademark in a country with weaker trademark laws, in order to profit from the resulting confusion. If an expert on trademark squatting examined what Unibev is doing, they might determine that it’s a much cruder variant: simply applying for a not-yet registered trademark one knows will soon be applied for, as a way of gumming up someone else’s business plan, or, perhaps, extracting a pay-off. This is all just speculation about Unibev’s motives, but if it was Unibev’s plan, it’s working. The USPTO’s application suspension letter to Tesla says the following (bold text mine):
The pending application(s) below has an earlier filing date or effective filing date than applicant’s application. If the mark in the application(s) below registers, the USPTO may refuse registration of applicant’s mark under Section 2(d) because of a likelihood of confusion with the registered mark(s). 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); see 37 C.F.R. §2.83; TMEP §1208.02(e). Action on this application is suspended until the prior-filed application(s) below either registers or abandons. 37 C.F.R. §2.83(c). Information relevant to the application(s) below was sent previously.
According to Electrek, Tesla has submitted arguments against the rejection of its application to the USPTO, and the letter says the office has “carefully considered applicant’s arguments… but does not find them to be persuasive.” It also cites an anonymous source claiming that Tesla and Unibev are trying to hash out some kind of deal.
It strains credulity a bit trying to picture Tesla not finding a way to please this French alcoholic beverage company and secure this trademark (won’t a sufficiently large pile of Euros do the trick?), but if they simply can’t come to terms, where can I sign up for a Cybercab ride in France? I presume this will be some kind of Cyberpunk Cabernet tour of Bordeaux, and I’m very interested.
Read the full article here
