Large Companies Starting to Protect Their Brands in the Metaverse

Gavin Menichini, using the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset, gives a demonstration of the Immersed Virtual Reality program which can be used for many applications on Jan. 28, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images)

An increasing number of big companies are filing trademark applications to protect their brands in the metaverse. They’re also looking to make money in this new realm by offering virtual goods and services.

Victoria’s Secret, New York Stock Exchange, and McDonald’s are among the latest corporations to announce plans to join the metaverse.

Nowadays, metaverse is considered the next big thing. Skeptics, however, believe that it is a technological bubble that’s starting to look like the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

The term “metaverse” was first used in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash where humans, represented by avatars, interact with each other in a virtual space.

The metaverse creates a three-dimensional world that can be used for every kind of activity imaginable and is considered the next generation of the internet. People can work, play, shop, and socialize from anywhere using a virtual reality headset.

An eXp World virtual meeting. (Courtesy of eXp Realty)

People will be soon ordering a Big Mac from a virtual McDonald’s in the metaverse. The fast-food giant on Feb. 4 filed 10 new trademark applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its McDonald’s and McCafe brands.

The company intends to operate a virtual restaurant, offering both “actual and virtual goods.” Other food chains that joined the metaverse include Chipotle and Panera.

The metaverse has also become attractive for designers and fashion brands like Victoria’s Secret. The renowned lingerie retailer on Feb. 8 filed four new trademark applications, intending to sell “virtual undergarments, footwear, and fashion accessories.”

Other fashion brands like Ralph Lauren and Gucci are racing to cash in on the metaverse frenzy, especially by targeting young people.

Shoppers, for example, can purchase virtual apparel from Ralph Lauren to dress their avatars on the metaverse platform Zepeto or gaming site Roblox. And Gucci even purchased virtual land on The Sandbox to expand its presence in the metaverse.

Real estate sales are booming in the metaverse, as well. Virtual properties on the four major metaverse platforms—Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium—topped $500 million in 2021 and could double this year, according to a CNBC report.

One of Republic Realm’s virtual Fantasy Islands in The Sandbox Metaverse. (Courtesy of Republic Realm)

Big tech companies are also pouring billions of dollars into this space. In October last year, the tech giant Facebook officially changed its name to Meta and unveiled a series of new moves to build the metaverse.

Facebook’s announcement has been “a huge game changer,” according to Siddartha Rao, a commercial litigation, virtual currency, and technology attorney at Romano Law based in New York City.

“That’s a huge impetus because what Facebook can do, just with its size and footprint, is invest in the infrastructure that’s needed for metaverse activity to become more ubiquitous,” he told The Epoch Times.

Rao believes this is one of the reasons why trademark applications have accelerated in recent months. Being a brand in the metaverse has become a much bigger deal.

The concept of a metaverse is not a new one. A virtual place named “Second Life” that launched in 2003 is considered an early version of a metaverse. It’s home to many virtual games. Despite being around for nearly two decades, Second Life didn’t have critical mass in terms of people and economic activity to generate significant trademark activity, Rao said.

Today’s virtual worlds, however, are qualitatively different as they go beyond gaming and promise to offer countless commercial activities. Customers, for example, can virtually go to a concert, tour a museum, try on clothes, or check out a car before buying.

A pedestrian walks in front of the new Meta logo in front of Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2021. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Interest in the metaverse also surged because of widespread acceptance and use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which create the ability to authenticate digital assets, according to Rao.

NFTs are unique digital assets built on blockchain technology. With NFTs, people can prove the authenticity of virtual goods in the metaverse.

“NFT basically solves the piracy problem for digital assets,” Rao said.

“What NFTs do is create the ability to put unique signatures on digital assets so that they are no longer pirate-able,” he explained. “This facilitates a marketplace. And once you facilitate a marketplace, it becomes more valuable to have a trademark.”

Other well-known companies that recently filed trademark applications to protect their brands in the metaverse include Walmart, Nike, Gap, Sketchers, and Crocs.

Every year, $54 billion is spent on virtual goods, according to a recent report by JPMorgan.

JPMorgan is the first Wall Street bank to enter the metaverse. The investment bank announced on Feb. 15 the opening of a “lounge” in Decentraland, a browser-based metaverse, according to a Bloomberg report.

In the virtual lounge, visitors are greeted by a portrait of the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon, and a roaming tiger.

The JPMorgan report states that “the metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues.”