News
The USPTO registered AI TRUST COUNCIL to The AI Lab on the Principal Register on October 6, 2026, as U.S. Reg. No. 8483190. The name of the body that governs the Trust Identity Protocol now has a federal record of who owns it.
Dinesh Mendhe, Founder and Chairman, The AI LabOctober 9, 2026
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has registered AI TRUST COUNCIL as a service mark of The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc., under U.S. Registration No. 8483190. The registration issued on October 6, 2026, on the Principal Register, the USPTO's main register for marks that identify a single source.
The registration puts on the federal record who owns the name of the body that governs the Trust Identity Protocol (TIP). Anyone can check it on the USPTO's public trademark status record.
What the record shows #
The USPTO record lists the mark, its owner and the services it covers. The application was published for opposition on August 18, 2026, and nobody opposed it in the 30 days that followed.
- Mark
- AI TRUST COUNCIL, standard characters
- Owner
- The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc., a Delaware corporation, Branchburg, New Jersey
- Register
- Principal Register, service mark
- Registration
- U.S. Reg. No. 8483190, registered October 6, 2026
- Application
- Serial No. 99676825, filed March 1, 2026
- First use
- February 24, 2026, anywhere and in commerce
- Published
- August 18, 2026, Trademark Official Gazette, with no opposition filed
- Services
- Class 042. Testing, analysis and evaluation of the AI systems of others to determine conformity with certification standards; technical advisory for the development of AI standards; independent audits to verify the safety of AI models, agents, infrastructure and datasets
- Disclaimer
- “AI” and “COUNCIL”
- Status
- Live, registration issued and active
The disclaimer is routine. Nobody can claim exclusive rights in a common word such as “AI” or “council” on its own, so federal law has the owner disclaim it, and the protection attaches to the full name, AI TRUST COUNCIL.
What registration gives the owner #
A Principal Register registration is evidence of the owner's exclusive right to use the mark for the registered services, and it serves as nationwide notice of the ownership claim, so nobody can later say they did not know. It also lets the owner use the ® symbol, which federal law reserves for registered marks. The USPTO sets out the same benefits in plain terms on its why register page.
The registration does not certify any AI system, and it says nothing about how good the Council's decisions are. It settles who owns the name.
Who owns the name, and who governs the protocol #
The AI Lab founded the Council and owns the mark. That arrangement is written into the Council's own rules. Under Section 17.3 of the Bylaws, The AI Lab holds the Council's marks as Founding Steward and licenses them to the Council royalty-free and in perpetuity, and it alone enforces them against infringement. Section 17.6 gives The AI Lab a reserved veto over any change to the Council's name or brand.
Governance of the protocol sits elsewhere. Under Section 17.1, authority on all protocol matters stays with the Council's five constituencies, and the Founding Steward does not vote on them. Readers who want to judge the Council's independence for themselves can read the Charter and the Bylaws in full.
Why the Council exists #
“When we built the Trust Identity Protocol, one principle was clear from day one. Code and cryptographic proof are half the work. The other half is human judgment, policy, and accountability across industries.”Dinesh Mendhe, Founder and Chairman, The AI Lab
The AI Trust Council was convened on May 3, 2026 to govern TIP. It now seats 22 members, with seven advisors and two ambassadors, across seven countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, India and Spain. Its Founding Chair is Joshua Baron.
The rest of the portfolio #
AI Trust Council joins two registered marks in the TIP portfolio. TIP was registered on the Principal Register on August 4, 2026, as U.S. Reg. No. 8380201, and Trust Identity Protocol on the Supplemental Register on June 30, 2026, as U.S. Reg. No. 8,329,395. Applications for AI Trust Registry, AI Trust ID, The Global Seal of Trust and The AI Lab are still pending, and the brand guidelines list the status and correct symbol for each.
What comes next #
A registration has to be kept alive. The owner must file a declaration of continued use between the fifth and sixth anniversaries, here between October 6, 2031 and October 6, 2032, and renew every ten years after that, as the USPTO explains in keeping your registration alive.
“The trademark is a checkpoint for our team. Trust is infrastructure, and we are building it to last.”Dinesh Mendhe
The Council's members and advisors are listed on its members page. This article is an AI-Assisted Verifiable Asset, protected by proof on TIP. Verify its record (tip://c/AA-e88694f048e157-a21d). The AI Lab publishes this article and owns the AI TRUST COUNCIL mark it reports. Every detail of the registration can be checked on the USPTO record.
Dinesh Mendhe is the Founder and Chairman of The AI Lab and the inventor of the Trust Identity Protocol. Follow The AI Lab on LinkedIn, YouTube, X and Instagram.