US artificial intelligence leader OpenAI applies for GPT-6, GPT-7 trademarks in China

Artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse OpenAI, which took the world by storm with its ChatGPT generative AI application, is now applying for trademarks under the names “GPT-6” and “GPT-7”, as the company continues to push the limits of the technology.

It submitted two Chinese trademark applications for GPT-6 under class 9, which covers apparatus and instruments for scientific or research purposes, and class 42, referring to technological services and design, and two other filings for GPT-7 under the same categories, according to records on the website of the Trademark Office of the China National Intellectual Property Administration.

The applications, still under review, were made by OpenAI OpCo, the major entity of the Microsoft-backed start-up incorporated in San Francisco, California. None of OpenAI’s services are available in China, including Hong Kong.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the trademark sent outside business hours on Sunday.

The American company, which offers no official access to Chinese users, also filed for “GPT-4” and “Whisper” trademarks in April, and another named “GPT-5” in July, but none have received final approval, according to the records on the China National Intellectual Property Administration website.

Since the launch of ChatGPT a year ago, OpenAI has been advancing the capabilities of its large language models, deep-learning algorithms that are able to achieve general-purpose language understanding and generation.

ChatGPT was initially built on GPT-3.5, which has 175 billion parameters. In March, OpenAI unveiled a more advanced GPT-4. The company did not disclose how many parameters the latter has, but US news outlet Semafor reported that the total parameter count of GPT-4 is estimated to be more than 1 trillion.