Collective Trademarks for Blockchain Communities?
By Ledgerback on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
When the ™law™ empowers those who need it most.
My oh my, I’ve touched upon an interesting topic.
Hi, my name is Charles, and I am an avid cyberspace and intellectual property law enthusiast who believes blockchain and other emerging technologies will have a large impact on our society and economy.
For this article, I wanted to discuss an interesting situation that occurred in the NIFTY community, a sub community within the greater Ethereum community, in August 2018, and why trademark ownership needs to be discussed as early as practicable for blockchain communities [1].
NIFTY Trademark
In mid-2018, Dapper Labs Inc., a subsidiary of Axiom Zen, and the venture studio that created CryptoKitties, a decentralized application (dApp) where users can collect digital pets on the Ethereum blockchain (think Neopets or Tamagotchi, but on a blockchain), filed a federal trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for “NIFTY,” a term created within…
