I participated in the European Blockchain Convention talking about IP (Intellectual Property) and Blockchain. This blog post is based on that presentation.

What if I told you that patent classes were initially defined in the 19th century when gears were the next big thing?

Government patent offices are stuck in the “Gears and Pulleys Revolution” when it comes to patent law.

Although the WIPO and the USPTO have tried to classify new ideas like AI-based or blockchain-based innovations, the whole system hasn’t been updated.

New innovations can (and should) be protected with patents, even if patent law hasn’t been able to transition from gears to tech completely.

But, the systems not being updated is not the only reason innovators don’t protect their blockchain ideas. A lot of people don’t think patents can be enforced on decentralized in decentralized autonomous tech.

Guess what? Patents can be enforced!

For example, patent owners can force organizations to turn over information, websites can be blocked, companies can be held liable. You can read more about it here.

So yes, blockchain patents can be enforced and they can protect your ideas. This is especially important today because BigCos are already trying to game the system in their favor.

BigCos are gaming the system

Every company, it doesn’t matter the size, has intellectual property. Protecting it is key to your business.

At KISSPatent, we did our own blockchain patent study. You can read the complete study here but I’ll share some highlights with you.

We were interested in knowing the current state of blockchain patents. When talking about new technologies like blockchain, which have new applications every day, protection is crucial to growing your business.

Proof of this is that 2019 had nearly three times as many blockchain patent applications as 2018.

Nearly as many patent applications were published through the end of June this year as in all of 2019!

The number of blockchain patents published per year since 2017

Big companies know how important intellectual property is and they use patent laws to squash smaller companies. Remember, many of these smaller companies don’t believe in patents and that’s used in favor of the big companies, not the other way around.

It’s not a coincidence that the top blockchain patent owners are big companies.

Top companies that have filed for blockchain patents, notice that just one of this companies is a “blockchain” company

And also, blockchain patents are not only about Fintech anymore. These companies are showing interest in other categories too!

Most popular categories for blockchain patents

Here’s your takeaway from this information: blockchain-only companies are NOT filing for patents, Fortune 500 companies are!

Smaller startups need to understand that even if they don’t believe in the power of IP, big companies do!

Protecting your ideas gives you a seat at the table.

But then, how can blockchain help the IP industry? These are my thoughts.

Why IP needs blockchain

Blockchain has the potential to improve the IP industry! Having a decentralized system would allow more innovators to get access to intellectual property protection.

Although, as I said before, patent law is not as updated as we would like, there are companies that are doing their part in using blockchain to improve intellectual property related topics.

No patent or intellectual property office nowadays uses blockchain but my hope is that, at some point, they will see the potential of it after seeing successful examples.

A way blockchain could help the IP industry is to keep track of the innovation process.

What happens when two people claim that they came up with the same idea? If the problem is related to a patent, then the first person that files for a patent for that idea has the right to it. It doesn’t matter if, in reality, the other person came up with the idea first. Most patent offices work this way, they have a “first-to-file” policy.

By using blockchain, innovators could keep track of their innovation process and patent offices could have access to important dates, without innovators having to disclose important information.

Tracking how your intellectual property is also an issue for many innovators, especially for IP-intensive sectors like pharma. Blockchain can provide a more effective and easier way to track them.

Some ways blockchain can help improve the IP industry

Another benefit of using blockchain to register the process of an invention is that it allows inventors to register changes and iterations in a fast way. In cases where innovation is happening fast and said innovations can’t be patented separately (for example, vaccine development), having a record of these changes is useful.

Mostly, having a decentralized system for patents would mean that you could file anywhere. The biggest advantage using blockchain would bring is that there would be no geographical limits to where you can file for a patent, trademark, or copyright. Also, blockchain would help protect assets worldwide, instead of doing it only in the country where your asset is protected.

All of this would mean less administrative work and costs!

An ideal future where the IP industry uses blockchain

What’s stopping us from having these possibilities?

Implementing blockchain in the intellectual property industry is currently difficult.

One of the main reasons is because there is no consensus on IP rights, especially when talking about patents. Every country has different understandings about it. For example, while in the US you can easily patent software, in Europe it gets trickier. Each country has different rules for what can be protected and how.

Intellectual property processes are also different depending on where you want to file for a patent, trademark, or copyright. Implementing blockchain in intellectual property is therefore very complicated.