Patents

[thr3]

Note: The reason I am starting a new topic here is because this requires technical knowledge to understand some of the details. Just to note I am not against the patenting of novel technology, I am against patenting something which is open source or created by someone else.

A perfect example would be this Patent Application

BoFA claims they have a novel technology approach towards using blockchain in transaction processing systems. This is not true as the patent itself has nothing novel inside and makes claims against inventions developed by other people (some companies seem to be doing this a lot these days).

The mining & transaction involved in Bitcoin is essentially a transaction-processing system where the miner has to find the nonce for a particular block. The blockchain approach uses cryptographic hashes to secure transactions in a distributed system was proposed by the author of bitcoin. Changing terminology does not equate to a novel technology.

There is a huge downside to the claims being made in the patent should it be approved. It will allow corporations like this to go after any wallet provider, companies or startups, and in some cases even block open source project or public sharing of certain technologies.

Wanted to know what the community thinks about issues like this

[Gears]

Its Bank of America what did you expect it? Even without technological knowledge you can deduct it is about money! If there is a good idea and it works just fine and is free don't be surprised some suits in corpo try to make more money and try put paten on it. Back in 2015 there was a scandal about expired paten on drug Cycloserine that went up in 24h from 500$ to 10.800$  after acquisition by Rodelis Therapeutics. This is just example how greedy some companies can be.

I believe open source software should be FREE and everyone should have easy access. I think Bank of America try to patent some part of Bitcoin/Blockchain technology to stop other banks from using it in the future for free, even on first place is FREE and open source.

[Kprawn]

They lodge these patents in the hope that it would stick up in court later on. They will throw all their lawyers and money

behind this, when it gets contested. The thing is this.... The Blockchain is already "Public domain" so nobody can file a patent

on something that are Open Source and in the public domain. This is also why CW is throwing his money into Bitcoin patents

and claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. {If he can successfully prove that he is Satoshi, then he can probably patent the

technology as his own} 

[aplistir]

They lodge these patents in the hope that it would stick up in court later on. They will throw all their lawyers and money behind this, when it gets contested. The thing is this.... The Blockchain is already "Public domain" so nobody can file a patent

US has strange patent laws. They can patent anything that has not been patented yet. Do you want to patent the wheel?

In civilized countries, you can only patent things that you have invented.
And in addition to that you can only patent things that are not published anywhere  before the patent application has been filled. (even if it is published by you) And you can not patent anything that is not a new INNOVATIVE invention. Meaning that if a specialist of the field thinks that it is "general" knowledge, it cant be patented.

It is also much easier to get a patent in the US. In eg. Europe the patents are examined more throughly beforehand.
In US the real validity of a patent is examined in the court IF anyone decides to challenge the patent. Everywhere else the patent is examined during the patent application process.

In Europe even Satoshi could not patent the blockchain, because it is already published.

[Ucy]

Saw the patent story & was shocked because blockchain isn't even patented.

Guess the best way to avoid potential problems is for community to ALWAYS stick with Open Source?

[thr3]

Its Bank of America what did you expect it? Even without technological knowledge you can deduct it is about money! If there is a good idea and it works just fine and is free don't be surprised some suits in corpo try to make more money and try put paten on it. Back in 2015 there was a scandal about expired patent on drug Cycloserine that went up in 24h from 500$ to 10.800$  after acquisition by Rodelis Therapeutics. This is just example how greedy some companies can be.

I believe open source software should be FREE and everyone should have easy access. I think Bank of America try to patent some part of Bitcoin/Blockchain technology to stop other banks from using it in the future for free, even on first place is FREE and open source.

Gears, unfortunately, their patent application covers a wide range of applications using the blockchain - they are technically speaking, patenting the blockchain itself (eg. is the patent I have included). The blockchain itself is a distributed transaction-processing system. Most of the work on the blockchain are open source and should remain that way unless they really have something novel.

US has strange patent laws. They can patent anything that has not been patented yet. Do you want to patent the wheel?

In civilized countries, you can only patent things that you have invented.
And in addition to that you can only patent things that are not published anywhere  before the patent application has been filled. (even if it is published by you) And you can not patent anything that is not a new INNOVATIVE invention. Meaning that if a specialist of the field thinks that it is "general" knowledge, it cant be patented.

It is also much easier to get a patent in the US. In eg. Europe the patents are examined more throughly beforehand.
In US the real validity of a patent is examined in the court IF anyone decides to challenge the patent. Everywhere else the patent is examined during the patent application process.

In Europe even Satoshi could not patent the blockchain, because it is already published.

The US patent law is actually broken. And in this case if BoFA is given the patent, it could harm the entire cryptocurrency industry. Problem is that due to international agreements between signatories, US patent laws have far-reaching effects, and this means internationally too. This is the reason why more companies patent their invention in the US first.
 

[bubble1]

They lodge these patents in the hope that it would stick up in court later on. They will throw all their lawyers and money

behind this, when it gets contested. The thing is this.... The Blockchain is already "Public domain" so nobody can file a patent

on something that are Open Source and in the public domain. This is also why CW is throwing his money into Bitcoin patents

and claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. {If he can successfully prove that he is Satoshi, then he can probably patent the

technology as his own} 

Anyone proving they are Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't need to patent anything, or do another day's work in their life.

The reason is that Satoshi holds private keys to the ownership of 980,000 bitcoins.

[Kprawn]

They lodge these patents in the hope that it would stick up in court later on. They will throw all their lawyers and money

behind this, when it gets contested. The thing is this.... The Blockchain is already "Public domain" so nobody can file a patent

on something that are Open Source and in the public domain. This is also why CW is throwing his money into Bitcoin patents

and claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. {If he can successfully prove that he is Satoshi, then he can probably patent the

technology as his own} 

Anyone proving they are Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't need to patent anything, or do another day's work in their life.

The reason is that Satoshi holds private keys to the ownership of 980,000 bitcoins.

It is not about the money, but more about the principle. Satoshi will have to patent the technology to protect it from greedy

people who would try and use the patent to block other companies from using it. If people like CW can prove he is Satoshi

and he gets the patent, he can charge other people for using his patent. This will block innovation with this technology, and

it will be a barrier to entry for some... 

[thr3]

They lodge these patents in the hope that it would stick up in court later on. They will throw all their lawyers and money

behind this, when it gets contested. The thing is this.... The Blockchain is already "Public domain" so nobody can file a patent

on something that are Open Source and in the public domain. This is also why CW is throwing his money into Bitcoin patents

and claiming that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. {If he can successfully prove that he is Satoshi, then he can probably patent the

technology as his own} 

Anyone proving they are Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't need to patent anything, or do another day's work in their life.

The reason is that Satoshi holds private keys to the ownership of 980,000 bitcoins.

It is not about the money, but more about the principle. Satoshi will have to patent the technology to protect it from greedy

people who would try and use the patent to block other companies from using it. If people like CW can prove he is Satoshi

and he gets the patent, he can charge other people for using his patent. This will block innovation with this technology, and

it will be a barrier to entry for some... 

'Satoshi Nakamoto' cant patent this anymore as he has already given the license of his IP over to Bitcoin Core and the repository is licensed under MIT/debian copyright.