Leaving aside the legality, I find it tacky to use the names of dead people in advertisements. Grace Hopper did not endorse this product. We have no idea what she would have thought of Nvidia. Yet the lawyers are now fighting over the right to use her name and legacy to "create shareholder value".
The worst offender is Tesla, because I'm pretty sure he would have hated that company.
It's tacky but I don't think they are in any way implying an endorsement. Tesla, Ampere, Pascal, Volta, Kelvin, Turing (and quite a few more I can't remember) are all Nvidia architecture names, and are all named after historically important scientists (well, I have my reservations about Kelvin, but that's more personal opinion)
I think they only started using the scientist codenames publicly starting from Tesla, but yeah they've used them internally almost since the founding of the company. Early on there was Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin, Rankine and Curie, then the well-known Tesla, Fermi, Kepler, etc.
Oh wow; I did not realize their architecture naming scheme even went back that far. That was their first one. The earliest I remembered hearing them call out the name was Tesla.
For other's reference, nvidia arch's listed on wikipedia as follows in order:
it's just flattery, same as naming a road, Martin Luther King drive, Washington boulevard, etc.
They may or may not have approved all this, but this just signifies that you want them to be remembered in your own way.
If it's an internal name, maybe, but external names are generally intended to manipulate the public via psychology to make unconscious connections to the product that will make them want the product, in other words "marketing 101".
Trademark are always about use in a particular context. Apple has a a trademark on computers using the name "Apple" even though that's been a word for a food for centuries. And if you want produce a line of bulldozers and brand them "Apple Bulldozers" you can do that and get your own trademark on the use of the word "Apple" in that context.
I really would like to see someone try this, but I do not think it will end well. Apple would find a way to squash the mark. They have sued many businesses that dared to use "Apple" in their clearly unrelated businesses, and I have no reason to believe that this case would be any different.
Practically speaking, trademarks cover whatever can be litigated successfully.
Trademarks are context specific and you can trademark "common terms" IF (and at lest theoretically only if) it's used in a very narrow use-case which by itself isn't confusable with the generic term.
The best example here is Apple which is a generic term but trademarked in context of phones/computer/music manufacturing (and by now a bunch of other things).
Through there had been an Apple music label with a bit of back and force of legal cases (and some IMHO very questionable court rulings) which in the end Ended by Apple buying that Label.
So theoretically it's not too bad.
Practically big companies like Apple, Nvidia and similar can just swamp smaller companies with absurd legal fees to force their win (AFIK this is Metas strategie because I honestly have no idea how they think the term Meta for data processing is trademarkable), to make it worse local curt have often shown to not properly apply the law in such conflicts if the other party is from an other country (one or two US states are infamous for very biased legal decision in this kind of cases).
So yeah at the core this aspect of the trademark system is not a terrible idea, but the execution is sadly often fairly lacking. And even high profile cases of trademark abuse often have no consequences if it's a "favorite big company". (For balance negative EU example do include Lego and it's 3d trademark and absurdly biased curt rulings, or Ferrero and it's Kinder (german. Children) trademark on Chocolate).
EDIT: also not the two TM: Grace™ Hopper™ both Grace and Hopper are generic terms you can under some circumstances trademark and then use together, but while probably legal you would likely want to avoid trademarking (Grace Hopper)™
There's one funny exception to the rule of Nvidia naming their GPU architectures after just the surname of a famous scientist - they always refer to the "Ada Lovelace" architecture using her full name, presumably to avoid association with the other famous Lovelace.
Affixing (TM) does not make something an enforceable trademark. Trademark rights are established by use of the mark in commerce. A (TM) is used to put others on notice that a word or design is being used as a trademark, which could potentially be evidence of the intent of an alleged infringer in a subsequent lawsuit. Intent is relevant because it affects damages and other remedies.
Can anyone with more legal knowledge share how they trademarked the name of Grace Hopper?