Bitcoin Forum

What is a Patent ? :)

Licensing of an invention, that no one after him/her can't make/sell with different names.

What is a Blockchain Patent ?

With the evolution of blockchain technology more and more blockchains have got published as well as into development. These Blockchains will have different use cases as well as have difference in the way it's been developed.

Blockchain Patent List

Large scale firms keep on developing more and more advancement, and as a result once a product is ready it'll be applied for Patent. Once after that it'll be availed for usage, further no one can claim it. There is a big list of blockchain Patents thats been got by the leading companies of the world.

Year to year the patent application keeps increasing. This shows how the traditional market is getting into the blockchain development.

Alibaba leads the track filling more number of applications compared to the other firms in the race. Last year it was IBM that took the lead. In 2020 the applications have increased tremendously, and following is the growth with Alibaba. Bank of America stands in the second position this year, and weeks back BOM started to use bitcoin as cash on remittances.

Based on regional publication estimate the patent holdings are below

• IBM - 240 Patent
• Rechain - 279 Patent
• WeBank - 282 Patent
• Nchain - 402 Patent
• Tencent - 724 Patent
• Alibaba - 1505 Patent

https://i.imgur.com/Dj7lEBx.jpg
With this I believe the future is much connected with blockchain technology, as each and everything will be developed over the blockchain technology same as that we have everything now associated with internet connectivity.

Source : Bitcoin.com (https://news.bitcoin.com/report-blockchain-patents-skyrocket-in-2020-alibaba-owns-the-most-crypto-patents)

Looks like Chinese companies in general is trying as hard as they can to register a lot of patents on the market. Quite understandable since they also have the BSN network, which is a big deal for any company who want to do a blockchain business over there.

But still, just how many patents will actually be useful and not some marketing gimmick?

China's quickly moving ahead of the game no matter what domain we're talking about. Might be an attempt to dominate these markets as well by patenting everything they can related to blockchain - don't you have to request approval and pay a percentage for using someone's patent? Alibaba and AliExpress have made a massive fortune, so I guess this is a well-thought strategy to earn even more profit.

I wonder what will become of the so called Blockchain patents If Satoshi had patented Blockchain/Bitcoin?
Maybe in the future the cryptocurrency communities that are based on Bitcoin/satoshi principles will organize and defend their rights from people who will try to sue them for copying a technology that is meant to be free and open source.
Well, I think such patents will unlikely stop public projects/communities that are well decentralized. Decentralization is different ideal/concept from their world of centralization.

Those patents are probably very specific use cases that don't necessarily conflict with Bitcoin. You can't patent anything that provably existed before your request, so existing crypto projects should be safe.

The question is whether it will stiffle innovation further down the road. However since software patents are not universally accepted it will be close to impossible to take legal action against any decentralized international project.

Probably 99% of those blockchains will die before their patents expire... so we will end up with a lot of patents and few projects.

Exactly. What happens if bitcoin simple implement a patented idea? Nothing. There is no way to really take a legal action against bitcoin. Since there is no CEO (well, they can put craig in jail), no company, no ID, etc, you can't really stop people from using a code in the internet.

Actually no! The way these big houses/conglomerates use the term 'blockchain' is entirely different from what we guys do! I have a friend who work in one of the MNC in Acquisition & Mergers department. He told me that 'blockchain' is quite a buzzword in industry right now. The startups which market themselves as blockchain-based project easily get funding.

So I studied more about that and the results were really surprising! Most of the executives sitting in these departments don't have any clear idea about blockchain technology. As a result, low-key projects which simply molding centralized databases into somewhat decentralization are raising millions here in India.

Even state governments in India are spending millions on these blockchain startups to bring their public operations on-chain like selling contracts and licenses. However, I was really amused the way blockchain technology was wrongly explained on those government websites.

So on the whole, if you read news like this one then just assume that they are selling their services in new packet because blockchain is hot selling point in industry right now. It has little connection to the cryptocurrency world!

Jack Ma's Alibaba group is indeed leading the race of patents. However, we need to be very very careful about this because every company in China is very well connected with the government and Alibaba is a China grown conglomerate. I see it as a reflection of their expansionist mentality. They very well understand the benefits of blockchain and gearing up for the future.

We cannot call them Blockchain patents for sure. Since the real Invention was by Mr. Satoshi and all these companies are looking for a patents regarding the modified version of it.

China have recognized the future profit , which is in Blockchain and they are also training specialists in the same. Guys in the IT sector are learning about this as a part of their academic curriculum.

There are even different courses which is specifically for people interested in blockchain technology.

Plus I believe most of these patents are not going to be especially profitable for these companies since the normal blockchain is without any patent and can be used by anyone , plus these modifications are quite easy if you have what it takes , but then comes sustainability , will they be able to modify this technology into something even better ? This is a question that we might find out in the future.

But for now..let's not call them Blockchain patents .

take money due to fad and buzzwords,  taking advantage of executives who do not know what technology can or cannot do, does not mean much. These projects may be raising money now, but are they sustainable?

As soon as these executives see that the projects do not give any kind of the return they are expecting (actually, they might not even be expecting anything), they will cut funding and these start ups will disappear just as quickly as they emerged.

This assumes that these projects aim for anything other than raising money. If raising money is your only goal you don't need to be sustainable.

For this one we can't be for sure and it will always depend. Patents are actually straightforward since aside from the requirement of your invention/technology of being unique and new our patent law also requires what you made to be useful for others so their invention might be useful for you but not for others but it will always depend on for who they made it for. The ongoing patent war we have just shows that it's always about who comes first and the volume of they are proposing since this will be the bulk of the money they will make in the future, it's really not up for us to the community to decide but the Patent agency judging if what they created is patentable or not.

the bottomline of most of these patents, is of course the potential money generated once utilised in the market. so once they are not seeing that it is not a hit in the market, they will just forget and move on to the next one. that's the reality of life!
 because some technologies are great but when it comes to actual application, they cant attract users or maybe it is not practical with the situation.

Well it could be the case, but on the contrary, there is a big possibility that some of those patented blockchain technologies had been used before by previous crypto projects who either forgot to apply patent or didn't care to bother since those are most likely open-sourced.

I just hope no legal issues will arise in the future concerning these patented blockchain technologies that may hamper further development on this emerging field. Imho.

Just IMO, honestly, China doesn't care what and which technology are they getting patented.
All they have in mind is business. It's all about the business for them. Having patent rights has a very high advantage. You will always make a profit from it,
not just a profit but a very passive profit. Anyway, China is good at technology and they aren't trying hard for that. They can always do it for themselves. But still, business is business when it comes to this matter.  

Chinese is one of the most have a large business through blockchain and through this blog, Report: Blockchain Patents 'Skyrocket' in 2020, Alibaba Owns the Most Crypto Patents (https://news.bitcoin.com/report-blockchain-patents-skyrocket-in-2020-alibaba-owns-the-most-crypto-patents/) that usually have blockchain patent businesses.

Blockchain Patents, why do blockchain industry and blockchain companies need such patent?

Blockchain is decentralized as it is born for decentralization and it should be aimed at.

Projects are open-sourced and everyone can look at source code, fork from it. The initial project is a direct patent for it. I don't think third party patent is needed. Github is the space to store source code of projects and it provides patent for blockchain companies.

Patents were invented as a way for individual inventors to capitalize off of the invention they made by paying them royalties whenever somebody else uses it. This was expanded to companies, and it's more likely you'll find a novel invention if you hire a bunch of software engineers as a single group at your company, and then as a consequence of their employment status, the company owns the patent.

In the event the inventors leave the company you will be left with a patent few people know how to implement, but companies eager to capitalize on it.

Companies who have unique technological inventions in a blockchain implementation e.g. algorithms, codes, etc.. may need to patent those technologies as part of their intellectual property to prevent future legal issues that might occur as what happened with big software companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc.. who have been involved with lawsuits for issues concerning intellectual property rights.




Not all blockchain implementations are decentralized as with the case in most crypto projects. There are also centralized blockchains (private) or could be a combination of both.



Not all projects are open-sourced, even so, there are still a bunch of crypto projects who keep some of their codes private and cannot be shared in public and are designed to be unforkable.

Are there no seminars or webinars conducted there explaining blockchain to these executives?

If what you say is true that investments kept pouring in on start ups just because blockchain is attached to it, then I see no difference with the retail investors during ICOs, IEOs, and the latest Yield Farming trends.

What will they do if they hear the word CeFi?

They actually care. They wouldn't have it patented if they don't. And yes, it's to protect their business interest.

Having patented a product doesn't ALWAYS translate to making a profit or a passive income from it. If nobody uses your patented product, you cannot charge anyone with fees, you won't get anything.

If a technology has been provably used before any patent that follows it can be deemed null and void, regardless of whether the original creators patented it or not.

Once something is out there, it's out there. You can't patent something that is already commonly used.

Was expecting BlockStream in this list. :-[

I think some countries are trying to develop their self with the blockchain patents by identify their products with patent and to attract other to join the train.
 Any way blockchain is a decentralized in the world which no country control, compare to centralized where government has the power to increase and decrease at any time.

Of course! The burden of proof will be on those who will challenge any approved patent and courts of law would  most likely favor towards the original creator / implementation of such technologies yet we should also be aware that there could be many technicalities in which both parties in a patent case can throw at each other - hence the possibility that it might hamper projects that utilise such patents in question.

Perhaps these approved patents as mentioned in the OP could be an "improvement" upon an original idea, algorithm or code which could be consider as an original intellectual property and this could be the reason why those patents are approved by concerned authorities.

In that case the claimant can only file a patent for the improved version of the algorithm, not the original algorihm because it is not novel.

Here's an example: Some organization makes a new video streaming codec like H.265 that improves on other codecs like H.264. They can only file a patent on that newer codec, not older codecs or the video container (.mp4) itself, unless they also invented those codecs/containers.

Same principle applies to blockchain constructs.

These executives work in Mergers & Acquisition department. Their work is to take over innovative projects then sell those services to other companies and governments. There is one thing they are expert in, "cost manipulation". They know how to sell stuffs. I was reading about a startup acquired by one such big MNC in India -

The service of this startup is to bring transportation cost involved in Supply Chain on-chain. It was pretty simple idea with a little tweak that transporter has to feed expense on blockchain at the time of incurring that expense with digital footprint of bill on the network. Hence, anyone in top-level management of the company can directly verify which transporter incurred which expense unlike previous system where transporters were claiming general transportation expenses from their seniors on estimation basis.

So the executives of this MNC prepared a cost-benefit analysis statement showing the saving in transportation cost the companies would make if they adopt their service. And guess what? This MNC currently have number of customers in Europe for this transportation cost blockchain service. LoL!

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There are actually. My friend told me that industry experts come to explain the newer technologies like blockchain tech, Big Data, AI, Machine Learning, etc. to his department regularly. But I have noticed one thing when I search articles or videos on 'blockchain technology' on internet. They go like - Blockchain Technology brings Transparency, Immutability, Decentralization, bla bla without actually explaining how those things are achieved! Now imagine a middle-aged executive having management degree and limited computer knowledge sitting in one such seminar. How would he receive those words? He would surely consider blockchain as some magical database which would automatically make everything saved on it immutable, decentralized and transparent.

a few days ago I discussed this topic with my friends on a local crypto media group.
they already have blockchain patents submitted in my country.
what I'm afraid of is, once "blockchain" patented generally as a brand or technology in each country, they can suing many people in this industry. and, maybe I am one of them, because I have a website with "blockchain" word  ;D
CMIIW

I am not talking about planting trees or reducing carbon emictions lol

I am talking about companies being financially sustainable.

Those projects are receiving money now because someone thinks that they will give good money return after some years. But as soon as they realize those projects won't (as most blockchain projects are not making money now) they will just cut off that money supply. This is the sustainability i am talking about

I was also referring to projects being financially sustainable ;) Good catch though, I completely overlooked the double meaning.

What I'm saying is that some projects are only after investor money, rather than trying to provide actual solutions.

And if investor money is all you care about, ie. your actual business model is just raising as much money as possible, then financial sustainability matters very little. In that case your project needs to be just barely sustainable enough that you don't get called out as the scam you are and that it floats long enough for the founders to gracefully exit the project.

Now I'm not saying that all buzzword projects start out like that, but I do have a suspicion that a significant portion of them is.

Perhaps its not that easy to sue people for patent infringement because there could be many technicalities that could be difficult to prove and it could be likely that those submitted patents were proprietary technology / algorithms by those companies and there is nothing to worry about, not unless someone had deliberately copied that specific patented technology - in which he/she could be held liable for such acts.

Please don't get yourself stressed out, AFAIK I have never heard of someone being sued for using the word "blockchain" which is being absurd by the way. :)

I found alibaba submission for their patents in my country. they submitted it since may-nov 2018.
all of them is still on progress. should be announced in june 2020, but I cant find any update about it.

also..

I found a group of people who submitted a patent for "blokchain technology". that is blockhain in general though.
report said that it submitted since 2016, but no update as well.

in my country, something like this is an issue. back then, there was an issue about patents for word "open mic" and "roasting"  ;D

Isn't this patents are just for the trademark purposes?

Certainly any developers can develop further any project that has been existing which even if its copied but had been developed further, there wouldn;t be an issue but maybe they will just sue base on the names or probably logos and designs. Other than these, it will just be hard to prove whether they entirely copied the project.