EMEL AKAN is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times in Washington, D.C. Previously she worked in the financial sector as an investment banker at JPMorgan.
Emel Akan
Virtual World Frenzy
COURTESY OF EXP REALTY
Large companies are starting to protect their brands in the metaverse
n increasing number of large 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, the metaverse is considered to be the next big thing. However, skeptics believe that it’s a technological bubble that’s starting to look like the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. The metaverse creates a three-dimensional world that can be used for every kind of activity imaginable. It’s being called the next generation of the internet. People can work, play, shop, and socialize from anywhere using a virtual reality headset. People will be soon ordering a Big Mac from a virtual McDonald’s in the metaverse. On Feb. 4, the fast-food giant 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 have joined the metaverse include Chipotle and Panera. The metaverse has also become attractive for designers and fashion brands such as Victoria’s Secret. The renowned lingerie retailer filed four new trademark applications on Feb. 8, intending to sell “virtual undergarments, footwear, and fashion accessories.” Other fashion brands, such as Ralph Lauren and Gucci, are racing to cash in on the metaverse frenzy, especially by targeting young people. Shoppers can purchase virtual apparel from Ralph Lauren to dress
People soon will be ordering a Big Mac from a virtual McDonald’s in the metaverse. 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 in 2022, according to a CNBC report. Big tech companies are also pouring billions of dollars into this space. In October 2021, 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. “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 Insight. Rao believes that 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. Interest in the metaverse also surged because of the 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. This facilitates a marketplace. And once you facilitate a marketplace, it becomes more valuable to have a trademark.” Other well-known companies that have 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. On Feb. 15, the investment bank announced 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 bank 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.” I N S I G H T Feb. 25–March 3, 2022 47
