Trademark battle begins? zkSync developers boycotted by multiple projects

Original title: "zkSync developers launched a trademark battle over "ZK" and were jointly boycotted by multiple crypto leaders"

Original author: Nancy, PANews

As the main narrative force of the L2 track, the ZK track is facing a trademark battle. Recently, zkSync developer Matter Labs has triggered protests from many projects after submitting the "ZK trademark application", including Polyhedra Network, Polygon and StarkWare.

Polyhedra issued a statement accusing zkSync of snatching the ZK project code, and multiple projects jointly boycotted

The story started on May 24, when zkSync's token was listed on the spot trading of the exchange Bybit under the name of "ZK", which subsequently caused dissatisfaction from Polyhedra Network, which is also a ZK project. The token code of this project is also "ZK". Polyhedra Network tweeted that although the ETH ETF has been approved in 2024, there are still projects that "grab" the project codes that others deserve for their own benefit. Web3 is not intended to be a hotbed of bullying, and the project also calls on the community to defend fairness and justice, and even directly named zkSync.

A few days later, Polyhedra tweeted again, "zkSync has never contacted us, and zkSync continues to spread rumors among different entities. If every project that issues tokens faces the threat of having its project code seized by projects that invest a lot of money, the entire industry will become chaotic and bring major regulatory issues." Subsequently, Polyhedra changed its token code to ZKJ when it was listed on HashKey Global, symbolizing "ZK Join"-a united and open ZK community. At present, Polyhedra's listing code on various trading platforms has been ZKJ in response to a week-long trademark dispute.

At the same time, Matter Labs has filed trademark applications for "ZK" in nine countries, which has also caused widespread dissatisfaction in the crypto industry. To this end, Polyhedra, Polygon and StarkWare jointly issued an open letter. In addition to Polyhedra co-founder and zkBridge inventor Tiancheng Xie, Polygon co-founders Sandeep Nailwal and Brendan Farmer, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, zero-knowledge proof co-inventor and Algorand founder Silvio Micali, Turing Award winner and ZK-proofs co-inventor Shafi Goldwasser and Kakarot zkeVM co-founder Elias Tazartes and other industry leaders all signed the letter, calling on Matter Labs to withdraw its trademark application and calling it "oppression."

Among them, Polygon tweeted that in keeping with the true spirit of Ethereum, Polygon Labs has always released open source code for the benefit of everyone, and this commitment has had a positive impact on the entire cryptocurrency field. Polygon Plonky2 has been widely adopted, and one of the beneficiaries is Matter Labs, whose core ZK technology also utilizes Polygon Plonky2. Despite relying on others' ZK technology, Matter Labs seeks to register the "ZK" trademark to potentially restrict others from using the technology. If one company monopolizes ZK technology, will users really benefit? Would zkSync exist without the ZK technology developed by Polygon Labs? No, its trademark registration for "ZK" will actually harm users through confusion. Openness is the foundation of Ethereum and must be preserved, especially with regard to core mathematical principles.

"Matter Labs claims that ZK is its unique intellectual property, but they neither created nor contributed to the creation of this technology. By using the legal system to take public resources for themselves, Matter Labs violates the spirit of cryptocurrency, Ethereum and its own principles." StarkWare pointed out in a tweet, and Eli Ben-Sasson also said that Matter Labs' attempt to register ZK technology as a trademark was a "ridiculous intellectual property registration."

Matter Labs responded: Oppose ZK as intellectual property, registration is to protect users

On May 30, Matter Labs, the protagonist of this "trademark ownership war", finally responded on the social platform that ZK technology belongs to the community and must always be a public property, freely open to everyone. Matter Labs applied for trademarks related to ZK to ensure that the word "ZK" can be used freely in the context of related names such as "ZK Sync" and "ZK Stack". Like it or not, trademarks are the only legal tool currently available. A common misconception is that owning a trademark means you legally own a word or phrase and can prevent others from using it. However, you do not have a general right to the word or phrase, only the right to use the word or phrase in your specific goods or services. Matter Labs is committed to finding an appropriate structure for the ZK trademark to make it accessible to everyone who builds ZK technology. ZK technology and its terminology should always remain a public product, freely available to everyone.

At the same time, Matter Labs founder and CEO Alex also responded that Matter Labs is an avid supporter of libertarianism, the spirit of cypherpunks, and the values described in the ZK creed. They oppose the idea of "intellectual property rights" and everything they create is released to the public under a free open source license. Trademarks exist to protect users, not companies. All trademarks that Matter Labs has ever registered, including those related to ZK, are defensive to prevent dishonest actors from misleading customers and confusing their products and services with those provided by Matter Labs (unfortunately, this was the case in the past). Previously, Matter Labs had contacted the Ethereum Foundation’s legal team and proposed collaborating to create a legal framework to enable the use of “ZK” and similar important technical terms in the public domain, and now the team is asking others to participate in this initiative, especially those projects that have applied for trademarks related to STARKs.

Before this, the zkSync ecological runaway project ZKasino was criticized by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin for not using any ZK technology, and he also expressed concerns about the increasing mainstreaming of the term "ZK", believing that the term has been abused to the point that even scammers have begun to use this buzzword.

Interestingly, the Ethereum L2 project also came to "interfere". Taiko said on the X platform that some discussions about the token code had been held this week. Considering fairness to everyone and noticing that another project has used TKO as its code, it was decided to change the token code to TAIKO to prevent conflicts and facilitate the listing of tokens.

The community is also arguing about this trademark dispute. Some people believe that Polyhedra's original token code was ZKB, and later changed to ZK, which was also suspected of riding on the heat, and from the X registration timeline, Zksync was registered in 2019, earlier than Polyhedra's 2023. Some people also believe that ZK is a public product and not any specific project. Using this name is nothing more than a lack of confidence in one's own project and is deceptive to investors who do not understand it.

Today, as brands become more and more important, creating a "golden signboard" for trademarks has become an effective means of establishing widespread popularity and an important weapon for project/enterprise market strategic competition. However, various cases in the past have also shown that whether a golden signboard can be polished, the product is a more critical factor.

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