Quick take:
- The trademarks cover NFTs, virtual goods and other crypto-collectibles.
- Fender could have plans to release music audio recordings and musical instruments as NFTs.
- Fender filed similar applications for Stratocaster and the Fender brand last year.
Guitar maker Fender has filed three new trademark applications for the shapes of electric guitar heads, trademark lawyer Mike Kondoudis revealed in a tweet on Thursday.
The new trademark filings signal plans for Fender to offer NFTs, virtual goods and other crypto-collectibles. The trademarks registered were for international classes 9 and 41, covering the provision of “downloadable software consisting of virtual goods, namely, digital artwork, photographs, videos, and audio recordings featuring music and musical instruments; all of the foregoing provided as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other crypto-collectibles.”
Fender filed similar applications for Stratocaster and the Fender brand last year. In 2021, the US saw a record-breaking number of 407 trademark filings in December. The number of filings has steadily increased this year.
From January to April this year, 3347 NFT-related trademark applications have been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Thousands of metaverse-related trademark applications have also been filed for the metaverse, totalling 2919 from January to April, according to Kondoudis.
March saw the biggest influx of trademark applications with 1023 filed for NFTs and 709 for metaverse-related goods and services. Some notable Web3 trademark filings in March and April include those from Meta, Mastercard, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
With a growing number of companies, artists, food and beverage manufacturers and service providers jumping into the Web3 world, new trademark applications for NFTs and the metaverse will continue increasing at the USPTO as brands seek to protect their intellectual property rights in the virtual world.
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