The United States Patent and brand office has rejected Neuralink’s attempt to brand the product names telepathy and telecinesis, citing the applications by another person for the same brands.

Neuralink, the brain -installed business erected by Elon Musk, submitted in March to brand the names. But in letters sent to Neuralink in August, the brand office refuses to allow the applications to move forward. It is said that Wesley Berry, a computer scientist and a co -founder of the technical startup prophetic, previously submitted telepathy brand applications in May 2023 and in August 2024 a prophetic build -up to build a portable headset to cause bright dream, but only Berry is the author of the trademark applications. (Berry declined to comment for this story.)

In response to Neuralink’s application for telepathy, the brand office also refers the existing brand for Telepathy Labs, a Tampa-based business that offers interactive voice and chatbot technology to businesses.

Musk’s neuralink, meanwhile, develops a brain-computer interface that involves a device, surgically implanted in the skull, which collects brain activity. The company uses the name telepathy to describe its first product, designed to give paralyzed people the ability to run their phones and computers with just their minds. Musk unveiled the telepathy name in a social media post in January 2024, shortly after the company implanted its first volunteer with the technology. A total of nine people now have the Neuralink device, according to an announcement in July. (Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment.)

Be Neuralink has filed an “intent-to-use” applications, enabling businesses and inventors to discuss brand rights before using the brand in the trade. Berry’s application for telepathy was accepted in December 2024 and in August 2025 for telekinesis, but the brands are not fully registered before showing that he is actually using it in the trade. Berry has three years to make this of acceptance, otherwise his applications would be considered deserted and the application of Neuralink would take precedence.

Berry did not market or commercialize a product called Telepathy or Telekinesis, but in his brand applications both described as ‘software that EEG analyzed to decode internal dialogue to control computer or mobile devices.’ EEG, or electroencephalogram, refers to the electrical activity of the brain recorded by electrodes worn on the scalp.

The letters of the brand office to Neuralink are not final decisions. Neuralink filed an answer letter on August 28 in which he addresses the existing Telepathy Labs brand and says that Neuralink’s telepathy product is unlikely to be confused with telepathy laboratories. Neuralink did not address Berry’s applications in his answer.

“The standard for the likelihood of confusion is, if a random consumer encounters both of these products, would they think they are from the same business?” Says Heather Antoine, an intellectual real estate partner at chair Rives in Sacramento, California.

The brand office will consider Neuralink’s response and decide if there is a probability of confusion. But there is still the fact that Berry first registers the telepathy and telecines marks. If Berry manages to register the marks, Neuralink would have some options. It may attempt to buy the brands from Berry or negotiate a consent agreement, in which Berry can agree to allow neuralink to use the marks as well. These kinds of similarities are usually concluded when the brands are unlikely to cause consumer confusion.

If Berry is successful in registration of telepathy, neuralink can be sued if the company continues to use it.

Josh Gerben, a brand advocate and founder of Gerben IP in Washington, DC, says it’s hard to know how things will shake out, because there’s a lot of nuance for a brand claim. “Certainly at the moment, the benefit is after this other applicant,” he says, referring to Berry. “He can become a substantial thorn on the side of neuralink in terms of these brands.”