The case could test how broadly companies leveraging AI can claim trademark rights.
A trademark dispute filed this week centers on two startups using the Kepler name and highlights a broader legal question: how far do trademark rights extend for brands built around artificial intelligence?
Internet Forest Corporation, operating as New Generation, alleges that Keru AI Inc. and its founders misused a domain and infringed on the plaintiff’s trademark interests. The plaintiff runs an e-commerce AI service under the domain TryKepler.ai. The defendant acquired GetKepler.ai and operates Kepler.ai in connection with an AI product aimed at the financial sector.
The factual background begins when a bioinformatics company that had owned GetKepler.ai announced it was winding down operations and posted a notice indicating it was shifting to another business. The founder of the plaintiff reached out to explore purchasing the domain, but the parties did not immediately reach an agreement. Later, when the plaintiff renewed its inquiry, one of the former domain owners replied saying, “I think we already sold it to you!”
“I think we already sold it to you!”
It turned out that the domain had been sold to a different buyer, Keru AI, which was in the process of rebranding parts of its business under the Kepler name. The former owner later clarified that a colleague had been contacted by someone else and the domain had been transferred to that other party. GetKepler.ai now forwards to Kepler.ai, a domain registered to the defendant.
New Generation sent a cease and desist letter, asserting trademark infringement. Keru AI replied by rejecting the claim and asserting prior or superior rights. In its response, the defendant stated it had begun rebranding to Kepler before the plaintiff launched TryKepler.ai and claimed that the former domain owner’s common law rights in the KEPLER name for AI software dated back to at least April 2025. The lawsuit challenges that assertion and questions whether the domain acquisition conveyed any enforceable rights beyond the domain name itself.
One piece of evidence the plaintiff points to is the seller’s own confusion about who had purchased the domain. The plaintiff argues that this real-world confusion supports the claim of potential consumer confusion between the two brands. At the same time, the defendants argue the businesses and their target markets are materially different—one focuses on e-commerce applications, the other on finance—so consumers are unlikely to conflate them.
There are other noteworthy details. The plaintiff never registered TryKepler.com, which remains available for registration, while GetKepler.com is owned by another unrelated company that also uses the Kepler name. That proliferation illustrates how many distinct businesses have adopted the Kepler mark across industries.
The Kepler name itself has a long cultural and scientific pedigree: Johannes Kepler, the 17th‑century astronomer and mathematician, lends the name broad appeal. As a result, Kepler is used by many entities in technology, data, space, and analytics—examples found in web searches include mapping and data visualization tools, consulting firms, and space‑related organizations. This common usage makes the trademark question more complex: how exclusive or narrow should rights be when a widely used name is paired with “AI”?
Legally, this dispute raises important questions about the scope of trademark protection for AI brands. If many startups attach AI to their core product—resulting in names like TryKepler.ai, Kepler.ai, and GetKepler.ai—should a single company be able to claim broad exclusive rights to the root name simply because both parties use artificial intelligence? Or should trademark protection be confined to the specific goods, services, and customer channels each company actually serves?
The court’s decision could influence how courts treat brand names tied to AI across different markets. A broad ruling in favor of one party could give AI companies sweeping protection over a shared name regardless of industry, while a narrower ruling could preserve the ability of multiple companies to use similar AI‑related names as long as they operate in distinct markets and do not cause consumer confusion.
As AI becomes a core technology across sectors, this case may help define the boundaries of brand protection for AI-driven products and services, particularly when a common name is already widely used in the marketplace.