Research and analysis

An analysis of the Metaverse IP landscape (HTML)

Published 7 March 2024

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ISBN

978-1-915090-53-9

1. Executive summary

The metaverse is a concept which has no clear definition, and some attempts to define it have been controversial. We have, however, decided to adopt this term in this report due to its popularity. We have not limited it’s use to a specific definition, but are using the term to broadly describe a shared online virtual space. Generally, access to this metaverse environment is through existing hardware such as head-mounted devices (HMDs). This existing hardware generally relates to underlying concepts which are older than the term metaverse itself.

This report seeks to provide an overview of the IP landscape relating to the metaverse. It does so by looking at patenting trends, where relevant patents have been found by using a combination of relevant keywords and classifications. This report looks specifically at international patent families (IPFs), which are patent applications that have been filed in at least two different authorities. In addition to the patent landscape, this report also looks at the trade mark landscape in relation to the metaverse. It does so by using free text analysis of goods and services descriptions, and searching for specific terms which relate to the metaverse.

As of 30 June 2021, a total of 71,738 IPFs were found which relate to the metaverse. This report has found that there was a sharp increase in patenting relating to the metaverse from 2015 (3,027 IPFs) to 2018 (4,683 IPFs) when looking at IPFs per publication year. In addition, the most popular inventor location is the USA, with 26,196 IPFs. Japan is the second most popular with less than half the IPFs compared to the USA. In addition to raw patent counts, the report looks at specialisation using the Relative Specialisation Index (RSI). The UK has an RSI value of 0.15, indicating a degree of specialism in patenting relating to the metaverse. The UK is more specialised in patenting relating to the metaverse than other European nations such as France and Germany, who both have negative RSI values, indicating a lower degree of specialism for patenting relating to the metaverse. Qualcomm is the company which owns the most IPFs in relation to the metaverse, with 2,811 IPFs. Huawei has been rapidly increasing the number of metaverse related IPFs, with 190% more IPFs published in 2021 compared to 2015.

In terms of trade mark filings, there has been an ever-increasing popularity in applications relating to the metaverse. As of 30 June 2023, 31,503 UK trade mark applications were found that relate to the metaverse. Before 2010, the majority of these applications related to goods, however in more recent years there has been an increasing popularity of service trade mark applications relating to the metaverse. In addition, the number of trade mark applications with a virtual reality related word or phrase in the description field increased five-fold from 2014 to 2018, and around 2.36% of UK trade mark applications in 2022 included the specification term ‘virtual reality.’

In summary, this report highlights that the increasing popularity of the metaverse is reflected in IP trends, and such IP trends can be a useful evidence base to track emerging technologies.

2. Introduction

The metaverse is a concept which has no clear definition, and some attempts to define it have been controversial. We have, however, decided to adopt this term in this report due to its popularity. We have not limited it’s use to a specific definition, but are using the term to broadly describe a shared online virtual space. It is an area which has gained notable interest in recent years, with a number of different companies developing technologies to enable users to access this shared virtual reality. Of note is Meta, formerly Facebook, which changed its name in 2021 to reflect the company’s new focus on the virtual world.^{[footnote 1]} Generally, access to metaverse environments is achieved through hardware such as head-mounted devices (HMDs), and is supplemented by appropriate software developments. Some of these hardware technologies have existed for many years, the metaverse may be considered to be a new application of this pre-existing technology.

The metaverse is a rapidly emerging, innovative, and potentially disruptive sector with little specific regulation. The number of Metaverse users is expected to increase rapidly across the near future, with a prediction of over 1.4 billion users by 2030, and a projected market volume of $490.4 billion by 2030. ^{[footnote 2][footnote 3]}

IP is at the forefront of newly developing technologies and analysis of filing trends in patent and trade mark filings can offer insight into behaviours within a sector. Analysis of IP related to the metaverse will contribute to the evidence base on the metaverse, enabling development of regulation and understanding of its wider impact.

This report summarises trends in both patenting and trade mark filing in relation to the metaverse, in order to broaden the understanding of the IP landscape of this technology. For the purposes of this report, a broad definition of metaverse has been used, in order to capture underlying technologies that may have existed prior to the term metaverse. The definition of metaverse used for the purposes of this report is in line with that of the government’s consultation document relating to ‘Enabling a national cyber-physical infrastructure (CPI) to catalyse innovation’. In this, the metaverse is defined as:

The Metaverse’ describes a specific type of cyber-physical system, particularly focussed on the immersive visual integration of the physical and digital worlds for collaboration, entertainment, socialisation and the accessing of virtual services and operations.”^{[footnote 4]}

This report looks at the worldwide landscape of patents relating to the metaverse, as well as the UK specific landscape. It then investigates trends in UK trade mark filings using terms related to the metaverse.

3. Patent analysis

3.1 Methodology

Patent data was retrieved by querying PatentSight, a commercially available patent database provided by LexisNexis.^{[footnote 5]} This was queried using a bespoke search strategy combining keywords and relevant IPC/CPC classifications. The query used can be found in Appendix A.

The search was limited to patents published from 2000 onwards, up to and including data available at the date of extraction, 30 June 2023. Patent data from 2022 to 2023 is incomplete due to the standard 18-month publication delay of patents. As such, data from 2022 to 2023 has been excluded from date-related charts, but has been included in total counts. This search used International Patent Families (IPFs), which are families with an application filed in at least two authorities. IPFs were used because they are a more reliable measure of inventive activity than using absolute counts of published patent applications. IPFs are a neutral proxy for inventive activity because they provide a degree of control for patent quality and value by only representing inventions deemed important enough by the applicant to seek protection internationally. They create a sufficiently homogeneous population of patent families that can be directly compared with one another, thereby reducing the national biases that often arise when comparing patent applications across different national patent offices.

As of 30 June 2023, 71,738 IPFs were found which relate to the metaverse.

3.2 Results

Figure 1 shows how the number of international patent families (IPFs) relating to the metaverse has increased from 1,260 published in 2000, to 4,167 IPFs published in 2021. This increase follows a broadly similar trend to the increase in IPFs published across all technologies over the same time period. There appears to have been a marked increase in metaverse IPFs published per year from 2013 to 2018, with the number of metaverse IPFs being 68% higher in 2018 compared to 2013. By comparison, IPFs across all technologies only increased by 15% over the same time frame. The main increase in metaverse IPFs can be seen from 2015-2018, where all IPFs are growing at a slower rate over this same time period. Raw data can be found in Table 1 in Appendix C.

Figure 1: Number of Metaverse related International Patent Families (IPFs) per publication year, compared to the number of IPFs in all technologies per year, 2000-2021.

Figure 2 shows the number of metaverse IPFs by inventor location. Inventor country is established by looking at the inventor addresses provided. In cases where an IPF has multiple inventors from different countries, it is counted once per inventor country present. This means that the sum of all IPFs here may be higher than the total number of IPFs relating to the metaverse. Inventor country has been used as a proxy for location of innovative activity in this report. The USA is by far the most popular inventor country, with over a third of metaverse IPFs having at least one inventor located in the USA. The top ten inventor countries are shown in Figure 2, with further data captured in Appendix C, Table 2. The UK ranks sixth by number of metaverse IPFs by inventor country with 3,682 IPFs.

Figure 2: Number of Metaverse IPFs per inventor country, published from 2000 onwards.

Investigating absolute numbers of patents can only offer so much insight. To gain a better understanding of which countries may be specialising in patenting relating to the metaverse, it is useful to look at Relative Specialisation Index (RSI). This index gives an indication of how many patents are invented in a country in a specific technology, compared to the total number of patents invented in that country. As such, it indicates whether a country is inventing more patents within a specific technology than would be expected, given the overall levels of patenting in a country. This can then be compared to the same measure for other countries, to indicate if certain countries are more specialised than others in terms of patenting within a specific technology. If a country has a positive RSI value, it suggests a degree of specialism in a technology area, with higher values indicating a higher degree of specialism. Conversely, a negative value suggests low specialism, with more negative values indicating lower degrees of specialism. RSI is a relative measure however, meaning RSI values will vary across technology areas due to different levels of patenting in these areas. This means that the RSI values themselves are not comparable across different technologies, but the ranking of different countries across different technologies can offer some insights. Details on how RSI is calculated can be found in Appendix B.

Looking specifically at RSI for IPFs relating to the metaverse, Figure 3 shows that both Israel and India appear to have the highest degree of specialism, with RSI values of 0.30 and 0.29, respectively. A number of the countries shown have positive RSI values, indicating these are more specialised when it comes to metaverse IPFs than would be expected given the overall levels of patents being invented in these countries. The UK has an RSI value of 0.15, which is higher than the RSI values seen for other European countries with similar demographics such as Germany (RSI of -0.25) and France (-0.03).

Figure 3: Relative Specialisation Index (RSI) for Metaverse IPFs per inventor country for selected countries, published from 2000 onwards.

It is useful to understand who the top owners of patents are within a technology sector, and as such this report looks at the top owners of IPFs relating to the metaverse. Figure 4 shows the top ten owners of IPFs relating to the metaverse, where it’s clear that information technology companies are the most active in this sector. Further data can be found in Appendix C, Table 3. Qualcomm has the most IPFs relating to the metaverse, with 2,811 IPFs, accounting for around 4% of all metaverse related IPFs.

Figure 4: Number of Metaverse IPFs per owner, published from 2000 onwards.

Figure 5 looks at the number of metaverse IPFs published per year for the top owners identified above. This is limited to 2015-2021 to focus on the most recent trends for these top owners. Huawei have been steadily increasing the number of metaverse IPFs published per year, increasing over 190% from 48 IPFs published in 2015, to 140 IPFs published in 2021. This increase appears to be most prominent between 2020 and 2021, suggesting an increase in Huawei’s focus in this area. LG appear to have published a high number of IPFs in 2019 (284) compared to other years. Apple appear to have increased their patenting activity in this area from around 2019. Looking at Qualcomm, the number of metaverse IPFs published per year seems to have significantly dropped after 2018, with 53% less IPFs published in 2019 compared to 2018.

Figure 5: Number of metaverse IPFs for top ten owners, grouped by publication year, 2015-2021.

Moving to look specifically at the UK picture, Figure 6 looks specifically at the number of metaverse IPFs invented in the UK per publication year compared to the number of IPFs in all technologies which were invented in the UK. The number of metaverse IPFs per year broadly follows the trend for all IPFs per year, with the exception of 2010. In 2010 there is a significant spike where the number of metaverse IPFs jumps 162% on the previous year, before dropping back to a more baseline level from 2011 onwards. Further investigation into this peak shows that it is an increase across multiple owners, rather than being limited to one owner. In addition, the technology split for IPFs published in 2010 is broadly similar to the technology split for metaverse IPFs across the whole time period investigated.

Figure 6: Number of Metaverse related International Patent Families (IPFs) per publication year invented in the UK, compared to the number of IPFs in all technologies per year, 2000-2021.

Moving to look at the top owners of metaverse IPFs invented in the UK, Figure 7 shows that these broadly align with the top players worldwide in this field. A company such as BAE systems may not be expected, but further analysis shows that within metaverse related IPFs, BAE are mostly active in technologies relating to head-mounted displays.  A number of these international companies employ UK based inventors, which is why these companies appear when looking at metaverse related IPFs invented in the UK.

Top UK owners of Metaverse IPFs published from 2000 onwards.

4. Trade mark analysis

4.1 Methodology

Analysis for trade marks relevant to the scope of this metaverse analysis were conducted by filtering the trade marks specification field for each application in the UKIPO’s database of 4.1 million applications against a list of core terms, for one or more matches. It is worth noting that there has been a significant increase in the total number of trade mark applications made to the IPO since 2016. These have been mostly attributed to three factors, as discussed in the IPO’s annual Facts and Figures statistical publication. These factors are a significant surge in applications from China, the COVID-19 pandemic and filings driven by the UK’s exit from the European Union. The first two reasons have seen the number of applications increase for the majority of IP offices globally^{[footnote 6]}, however the size of this increase is much smaller in these IP offices since the UK’s exit from the European Union which is an extra factor in increased mark filings for the IPO.^{[footnote 7]}

A summary of terms used and the corresponding matching frequencies can be found in Appendix D. The specification field is populated during the application process by the customer to define the protections associated with their IP right. This is done either by selecting from a pre-approved list of terms or via a free text description box.

It is important to differentiate trade marks from other types of IP for the context of correctly interpreting analysis. A trade mark does not have the industrial application requirements of a patent, which affects how we may interpret our findings, particularly for an emerging technology such as the metaverse. For example, a large company could specify 100 product areas in a single application to future proof their brand, or a news site could specify hot topic areas despite no products in the field. Therefore trade marks activity arguably could be considered as a proxy for market activity, as opposed to patents providing a measure of innovation.

As of 30 June 2023 a total of 31,503 trade marks applications were matched to the list of core terms, with 27,396 matches on the term ‘virtual reality’, with usage of this term originating around 20 years ago. There were also 831 matches on the term ‘metaverse’ which roughly aligns with a separate piece of analysis that evaluated Trade Marks using sentence embeddings and found a cluster of circa 1,100 applications related to virtual goods & NFTs – a broader and out of scope field for this analysis. Therefore it should be noted that full matches on our core terms describes the virtual reality landscape as a whole which is likely much larger than the IP activity related specifically to the metaverse.

4.2 Results

Figure 8 shows how the number of trade mark applications relating to metaverse core terms has significantly increased between 2001 to 2022. There appears to have been a peak in 2019, with 4,758 trade mark applications relating to the metaverse being made in this year. There was a slight decline in 2020 to 2021, with another increase into 2022. Overall, the number of applications made in 2022 (4,045) has increased by a factor of 8 compared with ten years prior (396 applications in 2012). The split between goods and services appears to have been changing as the number of applications increase, with services increasing in popularity over time. In 2002, services accounted for just 13% of metaverse related trade mark applications. This rises to 31% in 2012, and further increases to 41% in 2022. Such an increase suggests a substantially increasing popularity in service-related trade marks relating to the metaverse. This may be related to the VR and metaverse sector still being relatively expensive to the consumer.

Figure 8: Number of trade mark applications per year which matched to core terms relating to the Metaverse, 2001-June 2023.

Looking at the top applicants of metaverse-related trade mark applications in the UK, shown in Figure 9, it is clear that a range of different companies are active in trade mark applications in this area. Sky Limited are the top applicants, with 607 metaverse-related trade mark applications. Huawei rank second highest, with 502 metaverse-related trade mark applications. Interestingly, Huawei also rank eighth for metaverse related patenting, which suggests this company may be seeking to build a metaverse-related IP portfolio.

Figure 9: Top companies by number of trade mark applications relating to the metaverse, 2001-June 2023.

Figure 10 looks at trade marks where their goods and services descriptions explicitly use the term ‘metaverse’, rather than the broader terms used in the trade mark analysis thus far. The reasoning for this is that the term ‘metaverse’ is relatively new, and has been increasing in popularity in recent years. Before 2021 it had not been used in a UK trade mark goods and services description. Between 2021 to June 2023, ‘metaverse’ was used 831 times. As such, looking specifically at trade marks using this term could yield some interesting results. This chart looks at monthly filings using the term ‘metaverse’ from October 2021 until June 2023, in order to be able to investigate trends at a more granular level compared to annual levels. From this chart, it is clear that there was a substantial increase in popularity of trade marks containing the term ‘metaverse’ from around March to July 2022, with the number of trade marks filed in July 2022 rising to 227% of the number filed in February 2022. Interestingly, service trade marks appear to be more popular when looking specifically at the term ‘metaverse’. This differs from what is seen when including trade marks using other metaverse-related terms, where goods are consistently more popular. This may be reflecting how ‘metaverse’ is a relatively newly emerging term, where there are more services using the term, whilst more developed technologies are more likely to have a higher degree of product-related trade marks.

Figure 10: Trade mark applications containing the term metaverse per month, October 2021-June 2023.

Whilst conducting this analysis, it was found that the term ‘virtual reality’ was the most popular term in trade marks related to the metaverse, where 25,510 trade mark applications were identified which included the term ‘virtual reality.’ As such an important term within the metaverse lexicon, it investigating trends relating specifically to the term ‘virtual reality’ may provide further insights. This is a term which has been in use over a longer time period than the term metaverse, and as such it was worth analysing use of the term between 2001 and June 2023. This trend is shown in Figure 11, where the number of trade mark applications using the term ‘virtual reality’ is shown per year. In combination with this, a line is shown to indicate the proportion of total trade mark applications per year which use the term ‘virtual reality.’ From this chart, it is clear that there was a significant increase in trade marks using the term ’virtual reality’ from 2015 to 2019, with applications 345% higher in 2019 compared to 2015. The proportion of all UK trade marks including the term ‘virtual reality’ has also increased, rising from 0.25% in 2012 to a peak of 2.36% in 2022. This increase suggests trade mark applications containing the term ‘virtual reality’ are of increasing importance to applicants filing in the UK. This uptrend corroborates with projected industry growth of VR; expected to nearly double in market size from 2022 to 2025. ^{[footnote 8]}

Figure 11: Trade mark applications using the specification term ‘virtual reality’, and proportion of all trademark applications using the specification term ‘virtual reality’, 2000 to June 2023. Source: IPO trade mark data

5. Conclusion

There has been a significant increase in both patent and trade mark activity in relation to the metaverse in recent years. The number of IPFs relating to the metaverse increased 68% in 2018 compared to 2013, whilst the number of trade marks filed in the UK relating to the metaverse increased seven-fold between the same years. This increase in IP activity reflects the increasing popularity of the metaverse, and may indicate that the technology is continuing to develop.

Looking specifically at patents, the USA is the most popular inventor location for IPFs relating to the metaverse, and also has an RSI of 0.16. This suggests the USA is also specialised to some degree in terms of innovation relating to the metaverse. The UK is the sixth most popular inventor country for IPFs relating to the metaverse, and has an RSI of 0.15. Whilst the number of metaverse IPFs invented in the UK (3,682) is broadly similar to other European countries such as France (3,207) and Germany (5,362), the UK’s RSI value (0.15) is notably higher than both of these (-0.04 for France and -0.26 for Germany). This is suggesting a higher degree of specialism for metaverse IPFs invented in the UK compared to both France and Germany.

In terms of ownership, large multinational information technology companies are the most active in this area, with Qualcomm is the top applicant for International Patent Families (IPFs) relating to the metaverse. Some companies, such as LG, have been very active in individual years, but have seen lower activity in other years. By contrast, other companies such as Huawei have been significantly increasing their patenting activity in recent years.

Moving to trade marks, it is notable that classes relating to services are increasingly popular for UK trade mark applications relating to the metaverse. When looking specifically at trade marks specifically using the term ‘metaverse’ in their description, services are more popular than goods. Top owners of UK trade mark applications relating to the metaverse vary more by industry compared to than top metaverse patents owners. Huawei is the top applicant of UK trademark applications relating to the metaverse, and are also very active in filing for patents relating to the metaverse. Use of the term ‘virtual reality’ in trade mark descriptions has also been increasing significantly, where around 2.36% of all UK trade mark applications in 2022 used the term ‘virtual reality’.

This analysis highlights that IP activity in relation to the metaverse has been increasing mostly in recent years, which is a reflection of the technology’s increasing popularity. As a newly emerging technology, it is likely that IP filing in this sector will continue to increase significantly in future years.

6. Appendices

Appendix A: Patent search strategy

(tac=(Metavers* or (meta near3 (vers* or univers)) or ( (((virtual or augment or mixed* or extend) near3 realit) or VR) NEAR5 ((Share* or joint* or multi_player* or multi_person* or online* or collaborate* or ((multi* or many* or several* or numerous) near3 (person* or people* or user* or human* or individual))) NEAR5 (environment or world* or surround* or setting* or location* or scene* or universe)) ) or  ((immers near3 digital) near5 (environment or world* or surround* or setting* or location* or scene* or universe)) or HMD or Headset or OHMD or PHMD* or VRD or (virtual* retinal* display) or (retinal scan display) or RSD or head_set* or (((head* or helmet* or skull) near2 (mount or worn* or attach* or fasten* or affix)) near4 (display or screen* or monitor* or television* or tv)) or (Digital near3 (twin* or human* or person))) or (Tac=(glasses or spectacles* or AR or MR or XR or Glasses* or goggles* or visor* or spectacles* or eyeglass* or (contact_lens) or Eye_tap or HUD or (head_up display) or (heads_up display)) and (IPC=(G06, H04, G09, A63F, G02B27/01, G02B27/00) or CPC=(G06, H04, G09, A63F, G02B27/017, G02B27/01, G02B27/00, G02B7/002, G02B30/00)))) and PublicationDate=(>=2000) and NumberOfFilingAuthorities=(>=2)

Appendix B

The IPO uses the Relative Specialisation Index (RSI) to compare two countries’ published patenting activity within the same technology area. RSI is a measure of a country’s share of patent families in a particular field of technology as a fraction of that country’s share of patent families in all fields of technology. In other words, RSI has the advantage of providing a comparison of two countries’ patenting activity in a technology relative to those countries’ overall patenting activity.

Appendix C: Trade mark search strategy

Table 1: Terms used to identify trade marks relating to the metaverse

	Term	Number of trade mark applications
Core Terms	metaverse	517
	web3	35
	vr	769
	ar	553
	mr	52
	xr	34
	virtual reality	23847
	augment reality	6329
	mixed reality	1128
	extend reality	121
	immersive digital environment	1
	immersive digital world	0
	immersive digital reality	0
Peripheral Terms	hmd	9
	head mounted display	3
	headset	8766
	head set	190
	vrd	0
	virtual retinal display	0
	digital twin	16

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8. https://www.statista.com/topics/2532/virtual-reality-vr/#topicOverview ↩