Linden trademark for credit cards
by Tateru Nino 
Aug 22nd 2008 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Entropia Universe, Economy, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
Linden Lab has been granted another trademark on their hand-and-eye logo. This time for a credit card. Specifically, trademark registration 3378449 covers "Online financial services, namely, offering a fictional-dollar-denominated credit card to charge online purchases".
Of course, 'fictional-dollar-denominated' would mean Second Life Linden Dollars (L$). Exactly what sort of card this might be is uncertain. You may recall that in 2006, MindArk released an ATM card for Project Entropia (now called Entropia Universe) allowing access to Project Entropia Dollars (PED) and supported by the Versatel cash-card network.
There's no indication whether Linden Lab is (or was) planning a physical card, or some sort of non-physical card, how it would be backed or where it might be honored.
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Could the mark have been filed in a purely defensive capacity? It is certainly possible but it is hardly likely. The other registrations on the logo have enough coverage that it would be unnecessary and wasteful to file this. We're not entirely ruling out poor legal advice, or simply muddy strategy, however we're not quite ready to call the Lab foolish.
While the actual filing fees aren't terribly steep, Intellectual Property lawyers for the preparation process trend towards the awfully expensive -- the application was processed through Howrey LLP. This is the hand-and-eye mark that Linden Lab already uses and they have significant protection for it already.
So, we have to assume, in the absence of poor advice or unfocused silliness, that the Lab likely didn't just file the mark on a whim -- that they expect (or had expected) to make use it for the listed purpose. Whether that project is something in progress, upcoming or presently dead remains to be seen.
In the meantime, we'll pop this on our list of things to watch out for.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shawk said on 1:21PM 8-22-2008
I could see this as being first step toward a variant game time card type. Or a way to try and arrange financial connections for those users in areas that don't have the regular credit card options.
Whatever they do with it I expect they'll overly build up the release and not understand why no one is as excited about it as they are, as per usual.
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Crap Mariner said on 1:36PM 8-22-2008
The machinima possibilities for a "What's in your wallet?" parody are endless.
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Norikue said on 5:17AM 8-23-2008
It looks like they are picking up what First Meta is doing. https://www.firstmeta.com/main
I guess they like the idea of a virtual credit card.
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Tateru Nino said on 6:53AM 8-23-2008
The trademark was filed 2-3 months after First Meta launched their own credit system - however, the trademark is categorized for a credit *card*. That most likely means a piece of plastic rather than an intangible item.
Uccello Poultry said on 6:44AM 8-23-2008
Part of me wonders if this is an indicator that folks will soon be able to use a real world credit card to earn Linden® Dollar "reward points' with purchases. I couldn't even begin to figure the ratios on that one.
My first thought, though, was to wonder if all this effort and expense to copyright the eye-in-hand logo would have been better spent on a more attractive one. Perhaps one that actually made sense.
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Toneless Tomba said on 3:13PM 8-23-2008
I'm thinking they might be going for the Entropia angle. The queues for paypal transfers are pretty big. It would free up someone internally to do other things. If they could offer a Debit card for that it would be awesome. Crosses fingers.
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