KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 10): American restaurant chain McDonald’s looks like it is preparing to make a move into the metaverse by registering 10 trademarks in the virtual space.

Cryptocurrency news portal Cointelegraph on Thursday (Feb 10) cited trademark attorney and founder of Gerben Intellectual Property Josh Gerben as tweeting that McDonald’s submitted a trademark application on Feb 4, including plans for "a virtual restaurant featuring actual and virtual goods" and "operating a virtual restaurant featuring home delivery".

Based on the application, the restaurant chain will be able to provide “downloadable multimedia files” for artwork audio and video files, and non-fungible tokens.

Cointelegraph said McDonald’s also included its McCafe brand in the metaverse trademark application.

It said the brand is ready to offer entertainment services, “namely providing online actual and virtual concerts and other virtual events”.

The portal said McDonald’s would be competing against other emerging virtual concert organisers like Animal Concerts.

It said such concerts eliminate geographical barriers that had prevented fans from seeing their favourite acts perform, and also vastly reduce the cost of touring.

The golden arches joins bakery and cafe chain Panera Bread in efforts to move its brand into the metaverse. Panera Bread submitted a similar trademark application on Feb 3 for a virtual restaurant and cafe chain called Paneraverse.