Trademark Award is "Groundbreaking"
Friday, March 27, 2009 | 
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Ari Blackthorne™
This made news a long time ago, when an application for trademark registration for the look of a Second Life avatar was submitted by Second Life resident Aimee Weber.It's no surprise as she has been highly successful in the SL environment since early on. The world always hears about Anshe Chung and Stroker Serpentine, but there are many more who've turned their activity in an MMO into a real business. And now, her Second Life "look" is now a legally registered trademark:
USPTO Grants Protection to an Avatar: "The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) approved a trademark registration filed by a person seeking to protect her avatar image, which represents the content services provided by the avatar’s creator in the Second Life virtual world. Commentators have noted that this decision is groundbreaking as it opens doors for further real life trademark protection for images used in virtual worlds."
More than the actual news about this particular case, what can be conceived here is that the United States Patent and Trademark Office will in fact recognize creations that are technically only available inside a virtual environment.
Obviously the image of Amimee's avatar can be screen-captured and printed and otherwise placed into many different forms of media. But it still is something created from scratch entirely within the virtual environment and it thereby, for all practical intent's and purposes: intangible.
Categories:
Socially Promising
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