Matter Labs in fierce battle with Polyhedra, Starkware, Polygon after its zero-knowledge trademark filing

Matter Labs is facing strong opposition from Polyhedra, Starkware and Polygon on Thursday after a revelation that the company filed a trademark for zero-knowledge.

Matter Labs face fierce criticism upon ZK filing

Matter Labs, the company behind Ethereum Layer-2 protocol zkSync, filed trademark applications in nine countries, seeking to make zero-knowledge (ZK) its unique intellectual property. The move has attracted fierce criticism from the crypto community and prominent crypto companies in the industry.

The company had previously tried to register with crypto exchanges using ZK as its ticker symbol, even though Polyhedra Network had already chosen it. This resulted in a week-long battle between the two companies. After the announcement, Polyhedra blasted zkSync, calling the protocol "a robber and a thief," stating that "Web3 was never meant to be a breeding ground for bullying."

Read more: ZK ticker causes clash between Polyhedra and zkSync

zkSync's decision to use ZK as its ticker further led to a series of actions against Polyhedra, including the recent delisting of its token from the Kucoin Convert platform and the ticker symbol change on Bybit exchange. As a result, Polyhedra has decided to officially change its ticker symbol to ZKJ, "symbolizing 'ZK join,' a united and open ZK community."

In the aftermath of the conflict between the two companies, Starkware and Polygon joined Polyhedra in issuing statements against the trademark application, urging Matter Labs to withdraw it. They called the attempt an "oppressive behavior," seeing that the company neither "created nor contributed to the creation of this technology."

"By using the legal system to claim a public good for itself, Matter Labs contradicts the ethos of crypto, Ethereum, and its principles," said Starkware in an post on X.

Alex Gluchowski, the founder and CEO of Matter Labs, clarified that the company filed for the trademark to "prevent dishonest actors from misleading their customers and confusing their products and services with the ones offered by Matter Labs." Additionally, he stated how they had previously met with the Ethereum Foundation's legal team to find a lawful solution to the issue.

Also read: zkSync is allegedly planning token generation event and airdrop

"Matter Labs is a zealous proponent of the libertarian, cypherpunk ethos, and the values stated in the ZK Credo. We reject the very idea of 'Intellectual Property.' Everything we create is released to the public under free open source licenses," said Alex.

Alex also swiped at Starkware, urging members of the community who "filed trademarks relating to STARKs" to join the initiative.

Polygon criticized Matter Labs' actions in an X post a few hours later. 

"Despite relying on others' zk technology, Matter Labs now seeks to trademark "zk" to potentially restrict its use by others [...] For the sake of the entire space, this attack will not be tolerated," said Polygon.