New Virtual Platforms RaisingOld Questions: Potential Impactsof the Metaverse on IntellectualProperty

• Date: 01 June 2023
• Author: Megan C. Parker

June 27, 2023FEATURE

New Virtual Platforms Raising

Old Questions: Potential Impacts

of the Metaverse on Intellectual

Property

Megan C. Parker

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©2023. Published in Landslide, Vol. 15, No. 4, June/July 2023, by the American

Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This

information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any

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without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the

copyright holder.

The metaverse: this popular buzzword describing a variety of dierent virtual

platforms and internet-based spaces is growing in legal signicance, especially

when intellectual property (IP) is concerned. Is the metaverse changing how IP

law should be applied to newly emerging internet technologies and online

infringement capabilities?

Over the span of a few years, the internet evolved “from a technical curiosity to

an increasingly important and pervasive aspect of modern business and

IP owners benet from a practically unlimited market through

the growth in the internet’s reach, popularity, and reliance in society. With the

internet’s evolution came new questions on how IP owners could protect their

rights online. “Because [IP] infringement takes place on the Internet countless

times every day, . . . [IP] owners have to make dicult decisions about how to

allocate resources to identify and stop

culture.” 1

infringement.” 2