[2016-12-21] MInt: Who owns blockchain? GS, BofA amass patents for coming wars

Who owns blockchain? Goldman, Bank of America amass patents for coming wars

http://www.livemint.com/Industry/wj3NKgn3msPo4mOApg0eHM/Who-owns-blockchain-Goldman-Bank-of-America-amass-patents.html

In the headlong rush to revolutionize modern finance, blockchain enthusiasts are overlooking one potentially costly problem: their applications, built on open-source code, may actually belong to someone else.

Recently, some of the biggest names in business, from Goldman Sachs to Bank of America and Mastercard, have quietly patented some of the most promising blockchain technologies for themselves. Through mid-November, the number of patents that companies have obtained or said they’ve applied for has roughly doubled since the start of the year, according to law firm Reed Smith.

As the blockchain— essentially a shared, cryptographically secure ledger of transactions—evolves beyond its techno-utopian roots and startups like Chain and Hyperledger open their source code to the public, the risk is growing that patents will turn into powerful weapons in protracted lawsuits over intellectual property, especially in the hands of trolls trying to cash in on the technology’s skyrocketing rise. Increasingly, experts warn established firms will use them to assert exclusive rights over the work of blockchain’s pioneers.