It’s been nine months since Trump Mobile announced itself, seven months since the company updated any of its social media profiles, and two months since anyone replied to my emails. Based on that, you might think that everyone involved had given up on the whole idea, but this week we saw curious signs of life: a new trademark application.
What’s strangest about the application is that it was filed not for anything new, but for “The 47 Plan”: Trump Mobile’s sole cell plan, which launched alongside the company itself in June last year. Like previous Trump Mobile trademarks, this was filed for by lawyer Michael Santucci on behalf of DTTM Operations LLC, and the listing says it was filed this Monday, April 6th. Why this trademark wasn’t applied for along with others at the launch, for “Trump” and “T1,” is anyone’s guess — I’ve asked, but the company is still ignoring me.
The phone itself is still nowhere to be seen. Since the launch nine months ago, there have only been two signs that the T1 Phone might be real: a handset that company executives Don Hendrickson and Eric Thomas showed me over a video call; and an FCC approval from January. I’d been told that the phone was on track for a launch in March, but that clearly didn’t happen.
There’s a lively debate in our comments every week about whether Trump Mobile is still making a meaningful effort to operate a carrier or ship a smartphone. Filing for a trademark doesn’t prove it’s doing either. But a fresh trademark application, almost 10 months after the first two, does at least suggest that someone, somewhere, still sees value in the project.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who first spotted the filing, points out that it’s unusual in at least one other way: it’s a pretty overt reference to Trump’s tenure as 47th president. “There has been no other sitting President in the history of the United States who has made a trademark filing that references the Office of the Presidency in connection with a for-profit enterprise,” Gerben writes.
I guess that’s one more first for Trump Mobile. But you know what would impress me more? Releasing a damn phone.
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