New Trademarks Hint That ‘Maven Verity’ Service Will Bring E-Bikes To Maven

General Motors has filed two trademark applications to register the terms Verity and Maven Verity with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), GM Authority was first to discover and report.

Filed on June 29^th, 2018, the filings are assigned USPTO serial numbers 88020515 (Verity) and 88020539 (Maven Verity), and the applications state that the terms will be used in conjunction with the Goods and Services categories of:

• Bicycles, electric bicycles, motorized bicycles, and structural parts thereof
• Motors for bicycles
• Electric conversion kits for bicycles comprised of motors for bicycles and electric handlebar motor controls

The GM Authority Take

This is the second time that we have seen General Motors refer to bicycles and some form of motorized bicycles in conjunction with its Maven transportation and car sharing service. In October 2016, GM filed a trademark application for Maven that referenced the following Goods and Services categories:

• Bicycles, electric bicycles, motorized bicycles, and structural parts thereof
• Motors for bicycles
• Electric conversion kits for bicycles comprised of motors for bicycles and electric handlebar motor controls

That filing made us wonder (nearly two years ago) whether GM was planning to enter the business of bikes and e-bikes, and this June 2018 application for Maven and Maven Verity serves as further proof that The General is planning to expand Maven into electric bicycles, likely as a way to solve the “last mile problem”.

Notably, the “last mile problem” takes place when a consumer interested in using a car sharing service (like Maven) is deterred from using the service because he or she is unable to get to the location of the parked shared car by being too far away. In such an instance, an electric bike would help alleviate the last mile problem.

So, two GM trademark filings roughly two years apart associated with bikes/e-bikes should serve as a solid confirmation that GM is looking to introduce bikes into its Maven transportation service. The more pertinent questions revolve around how GM will implement e-bikes into Maven:

1. How will GM model the bike sharing aspect of Maven, and how will it make the bikes available to the public?
2. Will GM use a similar model introduced by dockless bike sharing services such as Jump or Lime/LimeBike (which don’t appear to be having much success in most markets in which they operate), or will it innovate in the space and do something different/more effective?
3. Will GM design, manufacture and support the e-bikes by itself, perhaps using the electric motor and battery technology from its advanced electric vehicles like the Chevy Bolt EV, or will it sources the units from an existing e-bike maker?

Stay tuned to GM Authority as we follow this story, and for more GM news and Maven news coverage.