A Kalshi petition filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) claimed the popular prediction platform dealt with gambling, even though it publicly claims it does not offer such services, per Sportico.
Kalshi requested that the intellectual property rights of its requested trademark for the term “prediction market” cover the entire gambling industry.
Key Takeaways
- Patent applications require the filer to list the industries with which it is associated.
- A Kalshi representative said that the company only wanted to cover all of its bases.
- The company’s CEO said that if it is gambling, then every financial market is gambling.
Kalshi’s application was submitted to the Patent and Trademark Office in early November 2025. In the time since, the company has experienced substantial growth, spurred by the rapid increase in popularity of its sports event contracts.
Companies applying for trademarks in the U.S. are required to indicate which industry classification they are connected to. Kalshi’s application noted links to several areas, including financial trading software, financial exchange services, and communication services.
It also stated that the platform was associated with “bookmaking services, namely, providing of information related to sports betting; organizing, arranging, conducting sports betting and gambling tournaments, competitions and contests.”
Elisabeth Diana, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement that the intent of Kalshi’s application was to cover all of its bases, not to explicitly define its business.
“This is particularly important as companies in adjacent categories look to expand into prediction markets,” Diana wrote. “A broader filing allows us to meaningfully protect the space and ensure that key terms are not used in ways that could blur distinctions between different products. This is not a characterization of our business as anything other than prediction markets.”
The USPTO requires that classifications are consistent with the goods or services offered by a company. Incorrectly identifying a company’s area of business would result in an application being deemed “unacceptable.”
