The University of Alabama, a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, established in 1820, has filed six trademark applications for its names and logos to embrace non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
According to the trademark applications, submitted to the USPTO on November 9, the University plans to provide:
- Multimedia filed authenticated by NFTs;
- Digital collectibles in the nature of photos, images, and videos of players, games, game footage, game highlights, and virtual experiences in the field of baseball, basketball, football, golf, gymnastics, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming, diving, tennis, track and field, cross country, and volleyball;
- Software used with blockchain technology for data storage and content access limitation;
- Digital trading cards;
- On-line retail store services featuring virtual merchandise, namely, multimedia files, NFTs, and digital collectibles;
- An online marketplace for buyers and sellers of downloadable digital artwork, text, audio, and video relating to collegiate athletics authenticated by NFTs.
The news was tweeted by trademark attorney Michael Kondoudis.
The University of Alabama is not the first to announce ambitions to enter the NFT and metaverse markets. Arizona State University submitted similar trademark applications in June.
Todai University in Tokyo announced metaverse courses in July to prepare students for a career in areas such as artificial intelligence, next-generation communication technologies, and others, while Nanjing University renamed its Department of Information Engineering to the Department of Metaverse Engineering in September.