One of the U.S. uniformed military branches, the United States Air Force filed for a metaverse trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on April 14. The application mentions a virtual reality space called “SpaceVerse”.
The DC-based trademark and patent attorney Michael Kondoudis first reported this on Twitter.
The trademark application by the Department of the Air Force hints at a metaverse space for training and other activities by the uniformed services.
It describes SpaceVerse as “a secure digital metaverse that converges terrestrial and space physical and digital realities and provides synthetic and simulated extended-reality (XR) training, testing, and operations environments.”
It’s unclear if the initiative is connected to the US Space Force, which according to its website is “organized under” the Air Force. However, it operates as a “separate and distinct branch of the armed services.”
The Air Force is not alone in its pursuit of a metaverse trademark. Metaverse and NFT-related trademark filings skyrocketed in 2021, and the trend is expected to continue this year.
Michael Kondoudis has cited multiple examples, the most recent of which was the filing of 15 trademarks by card payment network Mastercard for its “Circles” logo, the popular “Priceless” slogan, and its brand name.
