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Trade mark protection for virtual goods and NFTs: EUIPO and USPTO classification guidance and portfolio strategies for gaming, social media and the metaverse

Published on: 12 September 2022

Published by a LexisNexis IP expert
Legal News
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Article summary

The pioneering role of the gaming industry

Virtual goods and digital assets now originate, are bought and exchanged entirely online. They commonly mirror real-world products and services—virtually any item or offering found offline can be conceived in a digital guise. Unlike physical counterparts, however, a virtual item can be upgraded, altered and enriched with fresh functionality. Within gaming, such goods have long appeared as in‑game items: skins, outfits, accessories, gear and weapons for avatars. With blockchain, these assets can be made unique and their allocation or ownership recorded transparently, preventing double sales, enabling trading beyond a single game’s closed economy, and streamlining monetisation by tracking royalties on secondary transactions. Studios are already committing serious resources to tokenised assets. In up‑and‑coming worlds like Decentraland and The Sandbox, players can purchase, sell and develop parcels of virtual land with digital buildings. Ubisoft is rolling out NFTs in its titles and facilitating player‑to‑player trading via its Ubisoft Quartz platform. Digital assets open fresh possibilities...

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