How Blockchain revolutionizes the protection of Intellectual Property

While most people tend to assume that blockchain technology can only be used for monetary systems or decentralized applications, there is a huge range of yet unresolved problems that it can help to deal with. And companies are starting to come up with solutions to many of them.

One of those projects called IPCHAIN is addressing the existing difficulties of protecting Intellectual Property (IP) in a fast, reliable, and cheap way.

The problem with the current system is that, being the inventor does not necessarily make you the IP-holder. Only a patent grants you the rights. Filling a strong patent, however, costs at least $20.000 USD -per country! A sum most scientists and individuals are not willing or able to pay, since they cannot be sure their invention will be worth the investment.

To make sure at least nobody else patents their invention most scientists choose to do what is called a defensive publication. This is usually done by publishing the novel idea in a scientific magazine. Once that is done no one else can claim the IP, because the authorities will find that the idea has already been published and therefore lacks novelty. This solution, however, is not really satisfying as journals usually take a long time to publish an article or might refuse to publish an article at all.

Just publishing the idea online on the other hand is often insufficient as proof of authorship. The solution is an immutable blockchain database, the IPCHAIN.

Disrupting the old and slow system with Blockchain technology

IPCHAIN would solve those problems. Everyone could publish their ideas freely on the blockchain, which is tamper-proof and thus sufficient proof of authorship in the eyes of patent authorities. Also, it would make scientists and inventors independent from journals. This would enable everyone to ensure IP in the form of a defensive publication in a matter of seconds. Blockchain would revolutionize the IP-system, changing it from being centralized, slow and expensive to being decentralized, fast and cheap. Which would greatly benefit research scientists, inventors and companies.

The idea to provide a tamper-proof platform for IP on a blockchain, that works together with authorities like WIPO Green to ensure the IP will be regarded as prior art by patent authorities is refreshingly innovative and underlines the many creative ways to use blockchain technology.

If you are a researcher or innovator yourself or interested in the project, you can connect with the team via telegram.