Metaverse & Intellectual Property: challenges and opportunities 

Metaverse & Intellectual Property: challenges and opportunities 

The day Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that, in the future, people would share much of their time and experiences in a place called the ‘metaverse’ left no one indifferent. After this, companies and startups began to explore what opportunities were arising in this new virtual reality, and as a consequence, their legal teams, as well as specialised law firms, began to consider what new peculiarities might exist, and in particular, from the point of view of industrial and intellectual property.

This is important because, precisely, one of the fundamental characteristics of the metaverse lies in creating and/or distributing content, in digital format, through the metaverse (or metaverses, since nowadays there is not one, but several). Once our character or, as it is known there, our avatar, has been created, he or she will want to wear certain clothes, for example, in order to subsequently ‘create’ content, or acquire others. What happens with the brands of clothes that the avatar will use in this digital world? And with his or her designs? And with intellectual property rights? Can we transmit the latter in the metaverse?

As far as trademarks are concerned, since the advent of these metaverses, when they are registered with national or international offices (SPTO, EUIPO, or WIPO, among others), consideration is given to whether they are going to be used in the metaverse, and the corresponding class for protection must be selected during registration.

If we turn our attention to industrial designs, they can also be protected once they have been ‘created’ in the metaverse, if they meet the same requirements as designs in the real world, since, thanks to the opportunities offered by the metaverse, with the possibility of designs never seen in reality, a wide range of possibilities opens up for this type of protection of industrial property rights.

As far as intellectual property rights (also known as copyright in the US, or authorship rights in EU) are concerned, for those creations that meet the necessary requirements, and especially the criterion of originality, it will also be possible to protect works that emerge from the metaverse, such as images, songs or texts.

All of the above, seasoned by new technologies perfectly hybridized with this new ‘world’, such as artificial intelligence systems, blockchain technologies (which allows maintaining the chain of value and authenticity in the exchange of digital assets), and the emergence of such an interesting figure as Non-fungible tokens or NFT (Non-fungible Tokens), which can be used to carry out exchanges in the metaverse, being a representation of assets created in the real world.

In addition to all of the above, we must take into account another aspect, and that is that, due to the very structure of the metaverse, which is decentralized and global, and where users can be located in any country in the world, another question will come to the fore: What jurisdiction in terms of industrial and intellectual property rights applies to them? What if there is an infringement?

We may, for instance, encounter difficulties of this kind:

• Who is responsible? Especially in the case of anonymous users
• Is it possible to accept clauses exempting from liability?
• Where can I lodge my claim?
• And which law should be applied to resolve such a situation?

It will be very important to define the degree of liability of metaverse platforms, taking into account that some states have regulations to this effect and others do not. In Europe, for example, the service provider is obliged, once it has received notification of a possible infringement of rights, to act as diligently and quickly as possible to remove the infringing content.

On the other hand, the principle of territoriality will continue to play a determining role in the protection of intangible assets, just as it does in the real world, which means that, for example, assets such as trademarks, industrial designs or patents may be governed by different regulations when it comes to their registration, and the regulations of one state or another may apply, although the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Agreement (WIPO) offer some light in this regard. As far as proprietary assets are concerned, the Berne Convention offers us a greater umbrella of security, as it applies directly and equally, and includes minimum requirements that must be applied throughout the world.

As we can see, the metaverse offers us new tools and options for our daily lives, but for now, thanks to the existing regulations, we have the tools to manage what happens within it.

At Letslaw we are experts in intellectual property rights and their application within the metaverse, so if you have any doubts or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us!