In the past few years, individual investors have bought digital assets at an impressive rate, but the ecosystem is getting ready for an avalanche of institutional investments due to a rise in trademark applications.
According to trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis, there were 4,708 trademark applications for digital currency and related goods and services in 2022. Even more remarkable is the fact that his statistics only comprised applications from January to October, when the figure for 2021 was 3,547.
In contrast, the number of applications for the metaverse and virtual worlds skyrocketed to 4,997 from 1,890 in 2021. Despite a disappointing year for the business, the extraordinary gain demonstrates the growing interest in the metaverse.
NFTs were not excluded from the trademark registration frenzy, as Kondoudis highlighted that digital collectibles submissions for 2022 nearly topped 7,000 compared to the meager 242 filings for 2021. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) received 1,082 NFT-related trademark applications in March, but only 522 in August, corresponding with the global decline in NFT transaction volumes.
Firms from the technology, fashion, sports, education, retail, and finance industries are behind the Web3 trademark applications. Several of the companies said that they were interested in blockchain because of its features, and those in the payments industry are optimistic about its potential to make cross-border transactions better.
The companies behind the figures
Visa, a big payment company, has filed new applications in the last month to get more involved in the Web3 space. The company wanted its name to be used in software “to view, access, store, monitor, manage, trade, receive, transmit, and exchange” digital assets and NFTs.
MasterCard (NASDAQ: MA), which wanted to let its logo be used in virtual worlds, did the same thing as Visa. Ulta, a cosmetics company, took advantage of the trend and filed an application for digital collectibles and a makeup and salon service in the metaverse.
In the last month, many companies have filed trademark applications related to the metaverse and digital assets. These companies include Rolex, Meta (NASDAQ: META), Capital One, and Nissan. Citi Technology’s research team said that the ecosystem would become a $10 trillion industry by 2030, which is a big reason why companies are filing Metaverse patents.
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