One of United State’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange and wallet services, CoinBase have removed their application bid to trademark the term ‘BUIDL’.
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) website, the official status of the application was changed to “abandoned” on Wednesday, Dec. 19.
A deliberate misspelling, BUIDL is used by the crypto community to describe the concept of building products in an effort to continue to support the crypto industry as opposed to simply buying coins. It was construed to be opposite of term ‘HODL’- to acquire and hold coins indefinitely, regardless of market fluctuations.
An announcement by Balaji Srinivasan, CTO of CoinBase posted the following on Twitter:
Saw the commotion on Twitter & dug into this. Coinbase filed the trademark for BUIDL some time back. I learned about it today & chatted with team. TLDR is that @brian_armstrong & I don’t believe in trademarks for stuff like this so we’ll be giving this one back to the community.
— Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) December 6, 2018
CoinBase had filed for the term in early December and later on filing for the express abandonment on December 19, following social media outrage.
Also Read: The crypto dictionary
CoinBase clarified that they had filed for the application in the hopes of preserving the term and ensuring that it does not fall into the hands of trolls, yet the sentiment was met with much disgust from the cryptocurrency.
If the request had gone through, CoinBase would’ve held exclusive rights over the term and its usage. The Small Business Administration mentions that:
“Registering a trademark guarantees exclusive use, establishes legally that your mark is not already being used, and provides government protection from any liability or infringement issues that may arise. Being cautious in the beginning can certainly save you trouble in the long run. You may choose to personally apply for trademark registration or hire an intellectual property lawyer to register for you”