Metaverse. Real brands to distinguish virtual products and services

Not surprisingly, as a result of Mark Zuckerberg's announcement about the transition from his Facebook company to Meta, everything about the metaverse has resurfaced more intensely. It could not be otherwise, as we are not only facing an unprecedented innovation and investment project involving one of the five most valuable and positioned brands today, but also in the transition from social networks to that new world that we saw until recently in futuristic and sci-fi films.

The metaverse is the most disruptive thing that we have experienced at this moment in itself, it is worth the redundancy, which is already disruptive. The concept itself-beyond the universe-far outweighs an ecosystem that combines and implies the interoperability of digitization, virtual reality and augmented reality. We are facing a real immersion into the virtual world and a genuine convergence between it and the real world.

To date, and on the subject, there are countless projects, many of which, before Covid, have been strengthened and accelerated. An example of this is telecommuting. Fragments of videoconferencing in which some of the attendees appear in their underwear have gone viral throughout the pandemic. With the metaverse, this will be a thing of the past, for even though in the real world I am still in bed and pajamas, my avatar, who will participate in the meeting duly seated in the assigned place, will attend in sack and tie.

Teleportation from the real world to the virtual world concerns not only us, but everything around us. So there is a virtual market for products and services that are distinguished and promoted so that real consumers in their virtual facet-whether through their avatar or their favorite character in a video game-can acquire them. For the reader who is gamer or who has close people who are, it will be no stranger to him that certain Fornite characters are chosen for wearing Nike tennis or Balenciaga garments.

By 2025, this "metaversal market", which has an effect on the real world, is expected to exceed $280 billion. Thus, it is not free that work has already been done on crypto-payment systems and that companies such as Gucci and Puma have entered into licensing contracts for the use of their brands on metaverse platforms.

At the end of October, Nike went further, requesting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register several of its brands to distinguish computer programs that allow shoes and sports clothing to be downloaded for use in the virtual world. Likewise, registration to protect online retail services of virtual clothing and sports shoes. This action has been replicated by several companies, such as Alibaba.

There is no doubt that the metaverse is constant innovation, which entails and will bring about major changes and challenges in a number of areas, including the legal one, and notably intellectual property. In the face of the convergence between the real and virtual worlds, let us work with what we have. We Don't have to wait, let's register the brands in real to protect products and services in the virtual.