TikTok’s new trademark filings suggest it’s doubling down on its US business

Two recent TikTok US trademark filings suggest the company is doubling down on doing business in the country, despite facing a national ban over its Chinese ownership.

The trademark filings, previously unreported, hint at the development of two services aimed at expanding its advertising business and payment offerings that move beyond pure social media functions.

One appears to be an app, TikTok Go, to promote “restaurants, retail businesses, the travel industry, and other online and offline businesses.” It promises to help create marketing and advertising materials, develop financial projections to evaluate marketing investments, and provide marketing advisory and technical consulting, among other functions.

The other filing, submitted this fall, suggests the platform will jump on the buy-now-pay-later trend through a service called TikTok PayLater.

TikTok references a PayLater service on its Philippine website that allows customers using the app’s e-commerce platform TikTok Shop to split their payments into monthly installments. But the trademark filing suggests PayLater in the US may fulfill more functions, including handling physical credit or debit card readers and supporting apps that enable in-store transactions.

The filings are “just one more signal that the company remains bullish on the US market,” Tim Sovay, chief business development and partnerships officer at influencer marketing company CreatorIQ, told Semafor. “Brands and agencies do, too.”

A recent report from the company, which surveyed over 450 brands, found that 71% of them said TikTok was their most commonly used platform for influencer marketing.

TikTok did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the filings.

Trademark applications typically take between 8 and 14 months to be processed, according to the US Trademark and Patent Office.