Insights

If your company isn’t on the metaverse yet, don’t wait for it. Because your customers are already there.

Artificial intelligence and the metaverse are two of the most rapidly evolving technologies today, testing the boundaries of intellectual property law. While the swift expansion of AI in all industry sectors can be thrilling, it also presents challenges in terms of protecting and encouraging artistic and scientific endeavors. A principal challenge for authors, creators, and corporations is how to protect creative endeavors from the threat of consumption and reproduction by AI engines, while at the same time realizing the promise of AI-conceived and -developed creative and technological advances. This fundamental IP conundrum also arises in the evolving metaverse.

With the emergence of the “metaverse,” the global marketplace is experiencing unprecedented digital transformation, and brands are tuning in. This type of digital platform provides new opportunities for global companies to connect with their consumers. At the same time, it also offers a new opportunity for unauthorized brand exploitation and infringement. As companies seek to expand their presence in the metaverse, brands have been increasingly interested in how to protect their existing intellectual property from trademark infringement in the virtual world while also obtaining new metaverse-related trademark protection for their own brands.

Endless articles, commentary, and blog entries have been rattling the cage about the brave new world of the metaverse and the unprecedented legal issues that may arise and, in some cases, that have already arisen.

The landscape for advertisers and marketers has been shifting in an exciting direction. Over the past decade, industries have firmly embraced multichannel communication and brand building, creating a strategy based on a mix of traditional media and social media, with the persona of the “influencer” as the modern incarnation of brand communication. However, early adopters are on to the next, new universe for connecting with a different, wider, and younger audience around their brands: the metaverse.

At times, the real world can feel too set in its ways to change. Can the metaverse serve as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start over? If so, what would you consider? How would you create it with environmental, social, and governance principles in mind?

Through the metaverse, the global fashion marketplace is experiencing unprecedented digital transformation that will fundamentally reimagine and expand how consumers experience fashion. The power of the metaverse does not end in its untapped monetary valuation (estimated at $800 billion over the next 10 years); it also provides a digital platform that creates new ways for global companies to connect with their consumers. With all that this medium has to offer, it is no surprise that major fashion brands are tuning in and entering the metaverse in droves.

Imagine a customer walking into a clothing store. She browses the racks, selects a few items, and asks the sales associate for a dressing room. She walks into the dressing room and tries on the clothes. Then she heads to the counter, pays for some of the items, and leaves.

The term “metaverse” was coined by science fiction novelist Neal Stephenson in his 1992 dystopian thriller, “Snow Crash.” Stephenson’s metaverse allowed users to create almost limitless avatars and experience a new, virtual world firsthand, accessible through virtual reality goggles or “terminals.” Thirty years later, what was once science fiction is now reality. Immersive and interactive 3D digital worlds housed on a variety of virtual platforms are gaining in both prevalence and popularity—accessible through virtual or augmented reality goggles, smartphones, and computer screens. Each virtual platform, or metaverse, functions as its own world, with unique rules, currency, and user experiences.

Emerging technology leads to evolving brand guidelines. With the rise of e-commerce, trademarks were being copied and exploited in ways they had never been before, and guidelines began to emerge for internal and external teams online. Next, brands had to adapt to social media. The Federal Trade Commission began to against influencers, and brands had to carefully monitor what claims influencers were making. Brands also had to attentively manage how their own employees were interacting with social media.