Matter Labs drops controversial ‘zero-knowledge’ trademark effort

Matter Labs, the team behind Ethereum layer-2 network zkSync, announced on June 2 that it would drop all trademark applications for “zero-knowledge (ZK).”

Last week, the firm came under intense scrutiny due to its attempt to trademark the ZK term. Industry stakeholders, including Polygon co-founders Sandeep Nailwal and Brendan Farmer, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, Polyhedra Network co-founder Tiancheng Xie, and Turing Award winner Shafi Goldwasser, wrote a strongly worded joint statement condemning Matter Labs’ actions.

These experts argued that ZK was a public good no company should own. They furthered that Matter Labs’ actions negated the core ethos that the crypto industry holds dear.

In response to these demands, Matter Labs said it was dropping its trademark efforts for the term while appreciating the community efforts. It stated:

“These discussions came down to one important fact: it would be impossible to agree on a group of people perceived as credibly neutral by nearly everyone. What could have worked for Ethereum would not necessarily work for the entire world.”

Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski corroborated the firm’s position, adding that it wasn’t an easy decision. He said:

“This was not an easy decision. It increases legal risks, but the very purpose of ZK is to help humanity change its mode of cooperation from ‘don’t be evil’ to ‘can’t be evil.’ I feel that this is the right thing to do.”

Despite its public statement, the ZK term’s application status on the US Patent and Trademark Office website showed that the process was still alive. According to the site, the trademark was filed on Feb. 27, and the “application has been accepted by the Office (has met the minimum filing requirements) and has not yet been assigned to an examiner.”

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