According to Odaily, Alex Gluchowski, the founder of zkSync, has responded to a trademark dispute. Gluchowski stated that the existence of trademarks is to protect users, not companies. All trademarks that they have registered, including those related to ZK, were for defensive purposes to prevent malicious actors from misleading their customers by confusing their products and services with those provided by Matter Labs. Unfortunately, such incidents have occurred in the past.
Gluchowski also revealed that Matter Labs had previously contacted the legal team of the Ethereum Foundation, proposing to collaborate on creating a legal framework that would allow 'ZK' and similar important technical terms to be used in the public domain. Matter Labs is calling for more people to join this collaboration, especially those who have applied for STARK-related trademarks.
Previously, industry leaders including Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Brendan Farmer, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, Polyhedra Network co-founder and zkBridge inventor Tiancheng Xie, and Turing Award winner and ZK-proofs co-inventor Shafi Goldwasser, had signed an open letter calling on Matter Labs to withdraw the trademark application, labeling it as 'oppressive behavior'.