- Think you can ignore all this talk about crypto,
blockchain, Web 3.0, NFTs, metaverse?
Or are you wondering if any of that applies to you
as a business owner, then stick around
'cause I'm going to explain kind of what these things are,
but more importantly, what you need to know about them
to run a successful business now and into the future.
(gentle cheerful music)
Hi everyone, I'm business and branding attorney Aiden Durham
with 180 Law Co. in Colorado.
Welcome back to all up in your business.
If you haven't already done so,
be sure to hit that subscribe button
and that little notification bell,
so you get a notification anytime I post a new video.
Now, before we get into all this metaverse talk,
I want to make one thing very clear.
I am by no means an expert in really any of this stuff.
I would consider myself an expert in trademarks, of course,
but do I really understand what cryptocurrency is
or what the blockchain is
or what any of this stuff really means?
No, I don't.
Has it been explained to me a hundred different ways
by a hundred different people?
Yes, it has.
Has that made any difference at all?
No, not really.
Am I stacking SAS anyway?
Of course, I am.
The point is that I don't know,
nor do I really care to know all the inner workings
of blockchain, NFT, cryptocurrency, the metaverse.
I don't know and I don't really care to learn.
But I know just enough to be dangerous
and explain it to you.
Because even if you're like me and know
nothing about nothing, you still need to know
how the metaverse is going to affect you as a consumer
and more importantly, how it's going to affect you
as a business owner.
Okay, so let's get into it.
What is the metaverse?
The easiest non-techy way that I like to think of it
is like a digital or virtual version of the real world.
Kind of like a combination of video games and real life.
Using virtual or augmented reality technology,
you can enter the metaverse
and interact pretty much just like you would in real life.
You can work, you can play and socialize.
You can buy and sell, and consume products and services.
You can do pretty much everything you would normally do
in real life, except you're doing it
in this digital or virtual atmosphere.
Okay, great, so this lawyer lady on the internet
is telling us that the metaverse is just a digital version
of the real world.
Still doesn't tell me why I need to care.
Now look, I don't normally tell my clients to
look at what the big corporations are doing.
More often than not,
what's good for a large international company
is not always gonna be good for a small business,
but sometimes particularly in this instance,
we might wanna take some cues from the big guys.
So let's take a look at some trademark applications
that have been filed by
some of the world's largest companies
in the last few months.
Walmart applied to register the trademark, Walmart
for use with a bunch of different services.
Some of them including online retail store services
featuring virtual merchandise
namely electronics, appliances, furniture, home decor, toys,
health and personal care products, office supplies, jewelry,
pet products, pretty much anything you can think of.
I don't work for Walmart.
So of course I don't know exactly what they're thinking
or what they're planning,
but I'm guessing it'll be something like,
oh, we have entered the metaverse,
oh, look, there's a Walmart.
And just like in real life, you can enter the Walmart
and purchase various types of goods.
Except in this instance, they're virtual or digital goods.
My favorite skincare brand, CeraVe
is getting in on the action too.
L'Oreal the company that owns the brand
applied to register CeraVe
for skincare and toiletries to be sold to virtual avatars.
So not only can you take care of your real skin
with their products,
you'll now be able to take care of your digital skin.
McDonald's applied for a number of trademark registrations
as well, including one for their M arches logo design
for virtual concerts and virtual events.
So who knows, maybe I'll see you
at the McDonald's metaverse music festival in a few years.
The metaverse is essentially a brand new marketplace
in a fully functioning economy
that exists in this digital parallel universe.
Think about it,
if we as a species were to discover a new planet
and we decided to start developing it
and colonizing this new planet,
building a capitalist society on this new planet.
Best believed these large companies
would be grabbing up real estate over there,
and doing all these other things to proactively
plan for their business' presence in this new world.
That's basically what they're doing here,
except instead of a new planet, it's the metaverse.
They're preparing and getting ready for the rollout
of this whole new metaverse thing,
and they're securing their brands
with trademark registrations.
So they're ready to ago and have this presence and existence
in this new world once it's fully rolled out.
So what might we take from that
ourselves as business owners?
Well, the first thing is that trademarks
are still very important, even in the metaverse.
And at least currently, they work exactly the same way
that trademark applications and trademark registrations do
in the real world,
except that the goods and services are different
because they're digital or virtual goods or services.
If you're interested in learning more about trademarks
and how they work in both the real world
and the virtual metaverse world,
then check the description to download my brand new updated
BRANDISH trademark guide.
So you can learn all the fun ins and outs and details
of the trademark application process,
and how trademarks work.
All right, so we see all these big companies
are rushing to file tons of trademark applications
to get ready for the metaverse.
Does that mean that we need to follow suit
and we should be registering trademarks
for our virtual or digital goods and services too?
Maybe, but maybe not.
Certainly the best ideal thing to do would be to
start the process to register
all of your important trademarks for use in the metaverse,
as your business name, logo,
any existing trademarks that you use
that you might or plan to carry in to the universe.
It would be a great idea
to start that application process now.
Could you wait to do it?
Sure you could,
just like you could wait to register trademarks
here in the real world.
If you came to me and were like,
Hey Aiden, I am planning to start selling these new goods
or services under my brand name.
What should I do?
I'd say let's get the trademark process started right away
so we can secure your brand
for those new products or services.
It's really the same situation
and your new goods or services
are these virtual or digital goods,
but let's go back to my whole,
we found a new planet analogy.
Trademark registration in the United States
only applies to the United States.
If you want trademark rights in other countries
then you have to register in those other countries
or jurisdictions in accordance with their trademark rules.
So if you came to me saying, Hey Aiden,
I'm planning to launch a business on this new planet.
What should I do?
I don't know that I would recommend
starting the trademark process
as strongly as I normally would,
unless one country or jurisdiction ends up
owning the whole planet.
Who's to say that the laws of the United States
are even going to apply in this place?
Who's to say there's even gonna be a government
on this new planet?
Maybe we want free reign to run wild and free
and govern ourselves accordingly.
That's also kinda like the metaverse.
Metaverse, NFT, blockchain, Web 3.0, crypto,
something that these all have in common
is this concept of decentralization.
In the current real world, for example,
if you close your Spotify account,
you lose access to all of your playlists,
and you lose access to the streaming ability on Spotify.
If you close a social media account,
you lose all your followers.
Really, we don't own much from these platforms.
If we stop using these different platforms,
we lose a lot of the stuff because we don't own that stuff.
In this context, decentralization means that
we own our digital assets and we can carry them with us
between platforms, and we can own and sell them
across these different platforms
without some kind of penalty
or without the need of authorization
or permission from some centralized authority.
I mean, I think one of the main reasons
this whole thing exists is because people wanted more
autonomy and less oversight and involvement from
government authorities.
We want autonomy and ownership
over ourselves and our things.
So if we're talking about this new world
that exists in this decentralized space,
aren't we kind of contradicting that
by imposing these trademark
and copyright and intellectual property laws,
which would presumably eventually lead to legal challenges
and lawsuits, which would then be interpreted
and enforced by a governing body?
I don't know, but that's kind of what it sounds like to me.
And so, because of all of this,
the relatively new technology,
and this whole theme of decentralization,
the extent and scope of current intellectual property rights
and intellectual property law is still very much
to be determined.
Generally speaking, it takes quite a bit of time for the law
to catch up with changes to our society or our world.
We don't know how intellectual property law
and intellectual property rights are going to work
in the metaverse because it's never come up before.
It's not a question we've had to answer
or even really think about until recently.
We can really only make educated guesses
based on how we know it works in the real world
and how we think that might apply in the metaverse.
So what should you as an actual human living person
do with all of this?
And what should you as a business owner
be doing to prepare for this?
If you are gung-ho about entering the universe,
you are bursting at the seams with excitement,
you are certain that your business
is going to have a presence in some form in the metaverse,
and if budget really isn't an issue for you,
then, okay, let's do this.
Let's start applying for all of your brand's trademarks
for use in the metaverse.
Starting that application process now
is gonna be the best way to secure your brand
and get you ready for this whole metaverse rollout.
And let me be clear that since this is such a novel
and new concept that we're dealing with,
it is definitely a good idea to have an attorney
help you with those trademark applications,
if you're trying to get into the metaverse.
But for the rest of us,
for those of us who are like, okay, yeah,
I see, I get it, but I'm still not really sold
like the rest of us, do I think you need to run out
and secure all your metaverse trademarks right now?
No, especially if you haven't registered
any of your real verse trademarks,
your real world trademarks
prioritizing your metaverse trademarks
should not be a thing.
Let's focus on your real world trademarks
that you're currently using.
Then maybe later on, we can focus on the metaverse.
So again, if you're a hundred percent sure
you wanna be involved
and in this launch of the metaverse world,
and you've got the budget to allow it, then sure,
let's start working on those trademarks.
But for the rest of us,
I don't think that needs to be a super high priority,
but that does not mean you can just ignore this
whole thing altogether.
You can't just act like none of this stuff exists
or that this isn't going to happen.
It is our duty as responsible business owners
to educate ourselves and be aware of
what's happening in the world
that might impact our business, our brand,
or our business opportunities,
or our profitability, or the success of our business.
And so, if nothing else,
even if you don't care about the metaverse,
don't care about blockchain,
but you care about your business,
best thing you can do is stay up-to-date,
stay informed about what's happening.
Keep an eye on some of these bigger companies
and what they're doing,
because all of these changes that are going on in the world
and the metaverse world will eventually impact you
and your business.
If you got value out of this video,
go ahead and give me a thumbs up or leave me a comment.
Again, I know you guys, I did not explain.
I'm not trying to explain any of the stuff like in detail,
I'm explaining just enough,
so that you guys can connect the dots with the law.
So I hope I was able to do that for you.
Stay tuned because in a couple of episodes,
we're gonna readdress some of this topic and talk more about
NFTs and copyrights too.
So again, subscribe.
And make sure you hit that notification bell,
so you get notified when I post a new video.
And don't forget to check the description,
if you wanna download my BRANDISH ultimate trademark guide,
so you can learn the ins and outs of trademark law
and trademark registration.
Thank you all so much for watching,
I'm Aiden Durham, and I'll see you next time.
(gentle cheerful music)