Way back in January of 2007 when Apple unveiled the first iPhone they made an application for to trademark multi touch, and since then Apple has been pushing to get hold of that multi touch tradmark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, but now it appears that journey has finally come to an end with Apple losing.

According to an article over on Apple Insider by way of MacRumours, the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board have now denied Apple’s multi touch trademark application due to the “multi touch” term being “too broadly descriptive.”

Apple’s initial trademark application was denied by a USPTO lawyer and so Apple appealed that decision with the USPTO Appeals board who upheld the denial of the trademark application as a trademark attorney stated the term multi touch has taken on a “generic meaning,” and is now used to describe touch screen tech on “Android phones, tablets, and notebooks.”

Thus the Appeals board came to the decision Apple hasn’t submitted enough evidence to establish “acquired distinctiveness” of the mark.

Apparently Apple claimed that due to rivals adding multi touch functionality to their products shortly after the release of the iPhone, the trademark was undermined, although the term “multi touch” wasn’t first used by Apple they did try to claim it as their own

So there you go, for once Apple can’t lay claim to something that isn’t theirs, which means of course Apple can’t mount lawsuits against rivals for using multi touch. For those interested we have embedded the full Appeals Board decision below for your perusal.

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