Your source for CE industry intelligence
Sharp 'Had to' Drop NXT-GEN

PTO Scheduled to Publish CTA’s NEXTGEN TV Logo for Opposition Feb. 25

CTA’s application to register NEXTGEN TV as a certification mark for ATSC 3.0-compliant consumer goods (see 1909190066) is scheduled for Feb. 25 Trademark Official Gazette publication, a Patent and Trademark Office status page shows. Opposition parties would have 30 days from publication date to try to block the registration from going forward, if they wish.

A notice of allowance (NOA) would follow if the application clears the opposition period, giving CTA six months to file a statement of use (SOU), one of the last stages before the logo would proceed to a registration certificate. PTO requires SOUs to prevent companies from hoarding trademarks they don't intend to use in normal commerce. CTA, when it files the SOU, will provide “a copy of the standards governing the use of the certification mark” on 3.0-compliant goods that “have been evaluated to meet certain use and performance” metrics, said the association's Sept. 25 application.

CTA "will not engage in the production or marketing of the goods/services to which the mark is applied, except to advertise or promote recognition of the certification program," said the application. CTA hasn’t publicly spelled out in any great detail the minimum performance parameters required for a TV to qualify for the logo.

The roughly 20 models of 3.0-compliant TVs that LG, Samsung and Sony introduced at CES for delivery later in 2020 (see 2001080044) all had 4K and higher resolutions, plus HDR, advanced upscaling engines and most of the other high-end trimmings common on Ultra HD sets sold at the premium tier. The suite of 3.0 standards, though silent on 8K, does support 4K transmission and reception, plus most of the popular HDR flavors and advanced multichannel audio through the Dolby AC-4 codec designated as 3.0's recommended standard for North America.

A “potential bar” in PTO’s approval of the NEXTGEN TV logo was lifted this month when Sharp let lapse the Jan. 4 deadline for filing its SOU on a NXT-GEN consumer TV trademark and logo it had applied for in December 2018 (see 2001140030). The application had progressed to the NOA stage in June, but PTO declared it dead Jan. 6. “With the pause in our efforts to re-enter the US consumer TV market” (see 2001030029), Sharp was “not able to show usage on a product in the time period required to continue the trademark application so we had to give it up,” emailed Sharp Home Electronics President Jim Sanduski.