US Government Gives Update on NFT Legislation

A new study by the US government has concluded that NFT legislation is adequate for now. This study was requested back in 2022 and was just completed and published.

Back in 2022, several Democratic senators requested the study be conducted due to issues of copyright infringement and concerns about intellectual property theft. According to the results of the study, the current copyright laws on the books are able to handle any infringement concerns sufficiently

The study is 122 pages long and was conducted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The study was conducted using multiple roundtables that included interested stakeholders. From the study, it was concluded that the majority of the stakeholders were satisfied with the current laws for copyright infringement and the ability to deal with any issues related to NFTs.

They dealt with issues about infringement of trademarks and trademark misappropriation that are a common aspect of NFT markets. According to a statement from the issuing office, the conclusion is that no changes need to be made to intellectual property laws to incorporate language specifically targeted to NFTS. The study found that the current laws would be able to handle those kinds of issues and already included language that was broad enough to deal with NFT-related trademark problems.

Too Soon for New Laws

The government’s stance then on NFT legislation is that there is absolutely no need for illegal property laws to be updated or for recordation and registration practices to change. Any legislation targeted specifically at NFTs, they say, would be too soon at this juncture. The worry with adding legislation for NFTs right now is that it could hinder the development of new technology that stems from NFT markets.

There are concerns within the industry that some bad actors will take existing trademarks they do not own and misappropriate them and that some trademarks will be offered in NFT form in order to collect and exploit private information from customers.