Visa, the global payments giant, recently filed two applications with the USPTO, the US Patent and Trademark Office. The news comes after trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis tweeted about it on Thursday.
In the tweet, he mentions that Visa filed two main applications, indicating the firm’s plans for managing digital currency transactions and well as storing them, which points to crypto wallets.
But besides the basics of crypto transfers and wallets, the USPTO-licensed attorney also explains that the applications point to NFTs and virtual environments, which shows a possible collaboration with the metaverse.
Both trademark applications, which have the serial numbers 97643607 and 97643605, were filed on October 22.
Excerpt from License outlines ‘non-downloadable Platform.’
One of the applications says that the payments company is in the works for developing non-downloadable online software that helps users manage their transactions. Additionally, the application covers virtual goods, an NFT series, and a crypto wallet mechanism.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s Visa’s first venture into the world of crypto. The global payments company has accomplished various crypto-related milestones.
Just recently, Visa partnered with over 65 cryptocurrency firms, which include wallet services and cryptocurrency exchanges. This allows users to purchase services and goods from about 80 million merchants.
Visa Looking to Make Strides in the Crypto Space
In January last year, Alfred Kelly, the CEO of the company, explained that the company intends to allow crypto trading on its network. At the time, considering the momentum of cryptocurrencies drove businesses to dive into crypto.
Then, in the December of last year, Visa started providing crypto advisory services. Even before that, Visa filed a patent application that mentions a fiat-backed cryptocurrency system.
It’s likely that the company intended for the system to use a private distributed ledger platform. A large number of firms have started filing trademark applications for cryptocurrency related products.
Additionally, companies are filing trademark applications concerning USPTO and the metaverse. Just last week, Western Union and PayPal filed applications for numerous crypto products.
Earlier in October, Formula One applied for eight trademarks covering the term ‘F1’ in conjunction with various metaverse services and products. Meanwhile, Ford filed about 19 trademark applications.
Ecommerce platform eBay filed two applications a couple of months ago in June and Meta, the company between major social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, filed five since May.
Mastercard Files Trademark Applications for Different Crypto-Related Products
In April, Mastercard sent 15 trademark applications for cryptocurrency-related products and services.
Mike Kondoudis also elaborated on how Mastercard isn’t far behind with its applications. According to his statement, MasterCard’s trademark application covers the popular circles logo that’s on just about everywhere.
These trademarks show that Mastercard has intentions to plan a wide variety of NFT products that will also be compatible with the metaverse.