UHD Alliance Lands Trademark Registration Certificate for Ultra HD Premium Logo
The UHD Alliance landed a trademark registration certificate Tuesday for one of three versions of its Ultra HD Premium certification logo for devices and content with 4K resolution, HDR and wide color gamut, Patent and Trademark Office records show. The alliance applied for the trademark on the eve of the 2016 CES, where the logo was introduced (see 1601030003).
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One recent holdup in the application was when PTO examiners in a November letter ordered the alliance to submit a copy “of the standards used to determine who is authorized to use the certification mark.” The standards “must cover the full scope of the goods identified in the application, not just a subset of the goods,” said the examiners. The alliance filed a Jan. 18 response linking to a seven-page list of “regulations governing the use” of Ultra HD Premium that previously wasn’t disclosed publicly except to manufacturers vying to be certified. The regulations included the stipulation that manufacturers seeking to use the mark must first be “verified” and “vetted” by the alliance’s Compliance and Certification Working Group and that the verification expires in three years or when the working group “determines that changes to the test specification require reverification.”
Though there’s no shortage of premium TV models and content in the market that would meet the minimum performance criteria to qualify for the certification logo, a big challenge for the alliance is getting more device manufacturers and content owners to display it on their goods and services (see 1801050046). When he took the job last summer, Alliance President Mike Fidler said his highest priority would be to build a more ubiquitous market presence for the Ultra HD Premium logo (see 1708140048). The alliance’s consumer-facing website, ExperienceUHD.com, lists 18 models of TVs certified for the logo, all but four of them from Samsung. The site features no listings for Ultra HD Premium-certified content, even though programming with 3840 x 2160 resolution, minimum 10-bit signal depth and BT.2020 color representation is part of the spec.
The alliance has "multiple manufacturers certifying their product" for Ultra HD Premium and expects "more entries with the introduction of new models for 2018," Fidler emailed us Friday. Certifying for Ultra HD Premium "is a voluntary program and we encourage our member companies to certify their products and utilize the logo on a global basis, although only they can announce certified products," he said. Though no certified content is listed at ExperienceUHD.com, five studios are "utilizing the UltraHD Premium logo on their 4K UltraHD Blu-ray movies with an increased level of releases occurring throughout the coming year," said Fidler.