Much battle, so trademark, very crypto, wow doge fight.
There is a fight over who owns the trademark for “DOGECOIN,” the popular meme-based cryptocurrency worth a $31 billion market capitalization, and Elon Musk’s self-proclaimed favorite crypto to rally. The image and name related to the crypto theme is a meme of the face of a side eying Shiba Inu dog upon a gold coin. “Doge” is a term derived from the literal element of pronouncing “D-O-G,” as the hallmark of the meme is always a Shiba Inu dog with poor spelling and syntax. (See example of this in the opening line of this article).
What originally began as a [worthless] joke amongst friends in 2013 has blown up into hundreds of other cryptocurrencies bearing the word “doge” in each respective currency (everything from “BABY DOGE COIN” to “DOGEFATHER” exists). The creators established the Dogecoin Foundation but soon after the Foundation ceased to be active.
Enter Angel Versetti, the founder of a company called Moon Rabbit AngoZaibatsu LLC, who made changes to the dogecoin source code and made an original version they wanted to protect. The company did so by organizing a new business and calling it the Dogecoin Foundation to file a trademark application for “DOGECOIN.” This move angered the original creators and pushed them to file their own trademark application to prevent others from trading off the “goodwill Dogecoin has built.” The creators revived the Dogecoin Foundation and only recently applied for their own trademark of the “DOGECOIN” word mark in August 2021.
While it’s true that “AMERICA RUNS ON DOGE” is mark that varies from “BABY DOGE,” because it adds an additional word or two to the base word “DOGE” in relation to crypto/currency, the problem with crypto or any good/service trademark battles like this is an influx of third-party filed applications vying for the same word mark can preclude the original creators protection and registration of its rightful mark. Or even worse, the dreaded “trademark trolling” can occur, which is an attempt to file and sit upon the registered trademark without a good faith intent to use the mark in commerce.
Doge you know by now? It just doesn’t pay to wait to file your trademarks.