Report: OpenAI Sued For Infringing OverDrive’s ‘Sora’ Trademark

From Reuters:

Digital library app maker OverDrive has sued OpenAI in Ohio federal court, alleging that the artificial intelligence startup’s Sora video-generation app violates its trademark rights in the “Sora” name.

OverDrive said in a lawsuit,  filed on Wednesday that OpenAI’s app will cause consumer confusion with its own Sora app, which provides e-books and other digital library materials to students.

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If immediate steps are not taken to protect children from being confused between OverDrive’s SORA app and OpenAI’s Sora app, schools have indicated that they will have no choice but to take their own steps to do so—by discontinuing their use of OverDrive’s SORA app,” OverDrive said.

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From Publishers Weekly:

In its suit, OverDrive is asking the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin OpenAI, and anyone associated with them, “from using the Sora trademark or any other mark, trade name, word or name similar to the Sora trademark that is likely to cause confusion, mistake, or to deceive, including without limitation by further operating any business under Sora.”

OverDrive is also asking that OpenAI “be required to formally abandon with prejudice any and all of its applications to register the Sora trademark or any trademark consisting of, incorporating, or containing the Sora trademark or any counterfeit, copy, confusingly similar variation, or colorable imitation thereof on any state or federal trademark registry.”

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See Also: Court Docket/Track the Lawsuit (via CourtListener)
OverDrive, Inc. v. OpenAI OpCo, LLC, 1:25-cv-02520, (N.D. Ohio)

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Digital Collections, Interactive Tools, Libraries, News