New World Newsfeed: Is Rapid Trademarking Second Life's Killer App for Corporations?

Recent dispatches from the outside world...

Did a lawsuit over a virtual sex bed inadvertently create a very powerful application of Second Life for real world companies?  That's what I take from this post on Virtual World News, citing an essay in The National Law Journal, which in turn cites Stroker Serpentine's famous copyright infringement suit.  According to the Journal, companies might use this legal precedent for "rapid trademarking":

In the Stroker case, the avatar's real life owner, Kevin Alderman, got a US court to acknowledge and uphold his copyright claim over his SexGen bed, registered with his Eros LLC-- even though the bed exists only in Second Life.  (And for that matter, with its avatar-based sex animations, can only exist in SL.)

"If Eros is able to persuade the court that selling virtual assets for Linden Dollars in Second Life constitutes a 'use in commerce,'" paper author and IP rights lawyer Benjamin R. Mulcahy writes, "the same reasoning could provoke manufacturers to abbreviate the time and energy involved in bringing a trademarked product to market by introducing and testing their trademarked products in Second Life first, before they are introduced into the real world."

The possibility hadn't occurred to me until I read this sentence, but now that application seems obvious. Every day, individuals and companies file for patents and trademarks over ideas and names that exist only on paper.  I Am Not a Lawyer, but it seems to me that filing a claim based on that idea's operation in Second Life (with screenshots, machinima, etc.) would ironically be more legally compelling, in that it would be more vivid.  Even moreso if, like Stroker's sex bed, it was then made into a commercially successful product.

Comments

[Carl Metropolitan]

The trouble with the use of SL for rapid trademarking is that trademark law break down all possible goods or services into a 42 different International Classes (IC). Almost all Second Life goods will fall into IC 009 "Electrical and Scientific Apparatus", the class that includes most software. Services are more complicated, as it is possible to offer many RL services via Second Life, so a number of the Services IC codes (035 to 045) might be possible.

Thus it would do no good for a RL company who's goods did not fall into IC 009 to use Second Life to show use in commerce. However, SL does offer a very cost effective way to demonstrate use in commerce for many services--but then so does a regular website...