Patently Strategic - Patent Strategy for Startups
Patently Strategic - Patent Strategy for Startups
Into the Patentverse: Web 3.0, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and NFTs
“Metaverse” is the buzziest of the buzzwords in tech today and will soon be joining the ranks of “AI” and “ML” as requisite keywords in the next generation of pitch decks and patent applications. But what are the core components of the Metaverse? And what are their implications in the world of intellectual property? The Patently Strategic Podcast will be exploring this topic over the course of several upcoming episodes.
We begin our exploration with Web 3.0. While it may prove to be the next great tech revolution, the broad shape and definition of the Metaverse itself is still more firmly baked in science fiction than in commercial tech reality. Many of its core building blocks, however, are likely right in front of our eyes (or headsets, perhaps). History shows that most major technology revolutions are rarely leaps, but instead evolutionary products of incremental steps, composed of many existing building blocks, met with market readiness. The Web 3.0 innovations of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs that are taking shape in front of us will no doubt be among these essential building blocks.
This third phase of the internet also poses some of the most interesting questions for the world of IP. What will the impact be on digital property rights in a secure marketplace, governed by smart contracts? How will copyrights play in digital worlds with their own art and governance? Is there merit in considering a new type of protection category outside of patents and copyrights?
In our very first IPWatchdog episode, Kristen Hansen, Patent Strategist and software patent guru here at Aurora, leads a discussion along with our all star patent panel, digging into:
⦿ The fundamentals of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs – and why the hype
⦿ The state of the technology
⦿ Questions around what web evolution, blockchain, and NFT technology means for IP ownership
⦿ And strategies for protecting blockchain and cryptocurrency innovations
Kristen is also joined today by our always exceptional group of IP experts including:
⦿ Dr. Ashley Sloat, President and Director of Patent Strategy at Aurora
⦿ David Jackrel, President of Jackrel Consulting
⦿ Shelley Couturier, Patent Strategist and Search Specialist
⦿ Daniel Wright, Patent Strategist
** Resources **
⦿ Show Notes: https://www.aurorapatents.com/blog/new-podcast-into-the-patentverse-vol-1
⦿ Apply to come work with us: https://www.aurorapatents.com/careers.html
** Follow Aurora Consulting **
⦿ Home: https://www.aurorapatents.com/
⦿ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuroraPatents
⦿ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aurora-cg/
⦿ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aurorapatents/
⦿ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aurorapatents/
And as always, thanks for listening!
---
Note: The contents of this podcast do not constitute legal advice.
WEBVTT
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Good day and welcome to the Patently Strategic Podcast, where we discuss all things at
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the intersection of business, technology, and patents. This podcast
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is a monthly discussion amongst experts in the field of patenting. It is for inventors,
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founders and IP professionals alike, established or aspiring.
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In today's episode, our experts take on the future of the Web
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Metaverse. It's the buzziest of the buzzwords in tech today,
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and will soon be joining the ranks of AI and ML as requisite keywords
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in the next generation of pitch decks and patent applications.
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But what are the core components of the Metaverse, and what are their implications
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in the world of intellectual property? The Patently Strategic Podcast will
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be exploring this topic over the course of several upcoming episodes,
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but we begin our journey today with Web 30,
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the third major iteration of the Internet. While it may prove to be the
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next great tech revolution, the broad shape and definition of the Metaverse itself
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is still more firmly baked in science fiction than in commercial tech
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reality. Many of its core building blocks, however, are likely right
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in front of our eyes or headsets. Perhaps history
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shows that most major technology revolutions are rarely leaps,
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but instead evolutionary products of incremental steps composed
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of many existing building blocks met with market readiness. The Web
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30 innovations of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs
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that are taking shape in front of us will no doubt be among these essential
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building blocks. With an ability to touch both our physical and virtual worlds,
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cryptocurrencies could form the monetary basis for all economic activity
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in the Metaverse NFTs make it possible for unique items to
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exist and assets to be exclusively owned in the digital realm.
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The very foundations and infrastructure for the Metaverse in its virtual worlds
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could be built on blockchain technology.
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Perhaps the Metaverse is simply how we experience the third major phase of
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the web. Or maybe in its purest, most decentralized form, the Metaverse
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is built entirely on top of it. In any case, it's hard to imagine a
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future where the two are not inextricably linked.
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This third phase of the Internet also poses some of the most interesting questions
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for the world of intellectual property. What will the impact be on digital property rights
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in a secure marketplace governed by smart contracts? How will copyrights
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play in digital worlds with their own art and governance? Is there merit in considering
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a new type of protection category outside of patents and copyrights?
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In our very first IP Watchdog episode, Kristen Hansen,
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patent strategist and software patent guru here in Aurora,
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leads a discussion along with our all star patent panel, digging into the
02:31.316 --> 02:35.442
fundamentals of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs and why the hype the
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current state of the technology. Questions around what Web evolution,
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blockchain and NFT technology means for IP ownership,
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and critical strategies for protecting blockchain and cryptocurrency
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innovations. The first half hour of this episode is the best, most succinct
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understandable overview I've personally heard on blockchain,
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crypto, N FTS, and the evolution of the web. What follows
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is a wonderful conversation around potential IP world impacts and
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some very practical tips on drafting strategies and working with inventors
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who are innovating in these spaces. Kristen is also joined
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today by our always exceptional group of IP experts,
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including Dr. Ashley Sloat, President and director of
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patent strategy here at Aurora, David Jackrel, President of
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Jackrel Consulting, Shelley Couturier, patent strategist and search specialist,
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and Daniel Wright, patent strategist. And one final administrative note
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before joining the panel, we're hiring. If you'd like to join our growing team
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and participate in great conversations like these, go to aurorapetance.
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Comcareers to learn more and apply. We'll also include that
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link in the show notes. All right, without further Ado,
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take it away, crypto crew. All right. And we'll let
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Kristen take it away and educate us
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on okay, perfect. All this good stuff,
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highly relevant. Hot topic. Every time I turn on the business
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news or whatever, it's talking about my
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tanked, crypto.
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What's the future? Well, I'm hoping to do
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a little bit of a tutorial, too, because some of this stuff I knew,
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but there were so many things that I went, oh, I had no idea.
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I thought this group might appreciate that having you go in
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and out of software or you don't do software full time, it's kind
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of nice to get a quick primer. Absolutely.
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Okay. So the overview that I'm going to go through,
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blockchain and cryptocurrency, why so much hype? We'll talk
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about the state of the technology, and we'll talk about protecting these types of innovations.
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So why are you seeing all this cryptocurrency and
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blockchain tech out there in the last few years? And the short
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answer is actually trust and trust
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issues with digital money have really been overcome.
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And the long answer to that is they've overcome using blockchain
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because blockchain actually gives you a cryptographic
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way to store and use and access data. And so
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I will go into what each is and how they interact.
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But basically, digital currency has been
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just distrusted. It has not had a very centralized
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way or view. And with blockchain, it can have that now.
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And so all you've seen is cryptocurrency,
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cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency. And nobody really knows
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exactly how it works or what it is, but they want it.
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Like I said, it's very secure. It's decentralized.
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There's really no third party meddling here. It's not
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underwritten like the Department of treasury, gold and
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cash, just a different exchange. And the
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decentralization of this means no government, no banks,
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no data providers, no Facebook and Google in your inbox or
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in your business. I think there will be ways
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that these companies will glam onto these technologies and offer kind
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of a hybrid model, but we haven't seen that yet.
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Where you have it's convenient to have Google provide you
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this, but Google is not going to look at certain things, even though
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they say that they're not looking. They may in
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other realms with these realms, you may get something a little more semi
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private than you have today.
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And then identity masking it actually is a way
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to perform things in the digital
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money world without really showing
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your identity. You're not a user who has an account at
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a bank with a name and a Social Security number. This is really different.
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This is more like an on screen username that
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you came up with is tied to sudo sort
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of account number. And it couldn't be tied to a wallet
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that knows a little bit more about you. But none of those things
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are connected in a way that shares data. That way
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they're kind of siloed. So that can be good and bad, of course.
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Right. If you mask your identity, you might have some government problems,
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tax problems. You might be hiding drug money. Right.
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So overall, what is blockchain? Blockchain tech
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actually allows multiple parties to transact in a peer to peer manner.
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And this is truly without a third party
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bank or government or company entity overseeing that peer
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to peer network. If you have an email account that is owned by Google,
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Google can oversee all of that. They try not to look into that.
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They don't capture that data appropriately and
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mine it because it's your personal email. You're using
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your quotes, right? I am.
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Because they have access to it. What they're doing with it,
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they're not telling us. Right, right. And that's
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all the cost of doing business as a consumer
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who wants ease of use. Right. I want Google to set this up for me.
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I want Facebook to set this up for me because I don't have the
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time to figure it out myself. I just want the account and I just want
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to do the things associated with the account. And that's very traditional
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and it's very consumer forward and convenient.
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But there are some issues with that pop up and blockchain
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is a way to solve some of those issues
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by decentralizing that account entirely
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by it's immutable, which basically means it's unchangeable
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over time. If you do a transaction, you can't undo that
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transaction. If you pay somebody cryptocurrency using
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a blockchain technology, it gets time stamped
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and logged in the blockchain. And to
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undo that, that person has to pay you back in
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yet another transaction which gets verified and timestamp
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and put in the blockchain. But you cannot modify and
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change that blockchain by removing it's just additive.
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That's very interesting from
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a security standpoint, because that means in
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order to actually hack that,
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if you're going to change one block in the chain,
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everyone else in there would immediately know that that had been tampered with
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because you're passing these chains around in order to verify
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transactions. And so if hackers wanted to actually corrupt a
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blockchain system, they would actually need to change every block in the chain and
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change that across all the distributed versions of that chain,
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because one piece of blockchain is let's look
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at the network of people. Let's create a ledger.
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Let's use a hash to let people connect to that ledger, and let's
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log in that ledger everything that goes on. And in order to approve
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everything that goes on in that ledger, we want some sort of unanimous or some
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sort of quorum amongst our members that say this can happen.
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And so because of that quorum and that distribution,
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this is super secure. The other piece of
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this is blockchain is programmable. And that
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means it's actually got programs stored within
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the blockchain that execute basically when
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predetermined conditions are met. So you can imagine that there's
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probably a lot of inventions coming down the pike about that. Where I
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have an algorithm. It runs this way. Oh, by the way, I put it in
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the blockchain. Right. So that makes it kind of patentably interesting
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until it doesn't. Right. Until everyone's doing that. Like AI
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and ML. Yes.
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There's a unanimousness to this. Like I indicated,
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all network participants really agree to the validity of each record
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in the blockchain. And I can get into this later. But part
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of what that looks like is proof of work. And if
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I'm confirming that particular things and I
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don't have to confirm it as a user, but my account would confirm it by
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automatic comparison. So if I'm participating in that
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unanimous checking process, I can get paid by proof
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of work, which is just a minor little amount.
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But it means that I am part of the network. I am approving in
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the network, and I am continuing
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to use the network.
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The other part of this, I think I called this out as well.
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It's distributed. So this is a digital ledger technology.
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And a digital ledger technology can be anything from an Excel file
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to a list of cryptographically curated
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data. And the way they use this and distribute this
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is interesting because it really does go to every member of the network,
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every peer in the peer to peer network. Right. And they
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do that instead of passing this upward to a Google
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or a Facebook or a Twitter to verify things.
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And the other thing is anonymous. Like I said, they don't know your
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identity. Your username can be some pseudonym.
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It does not have to be you as a person. It could also be
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personas. Right. So maybe I have a work persona and
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a life persona. Right. This is my
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personal email and this is my work email. And they both have different personas
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when I access blockchain services.
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Okay. In that same vein, what is cryptocurrency?
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So cryptocurrency is also decentralized in that it uses
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blockchain and it does pass around kind
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of the idea of, is this okay to make this transaction?
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Can I transfer this to this person?
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Are they trustworthy? Are they able to
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confirm that they are part of this network and that they have an account or
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they have a digital wallet, right. And so you've seen
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these, I put it just a quick flip up there. Litecoin Ethereum
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coin, Bitcoin, ripple coin. There's many more.
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But in the end, cryptocurrency is data with a
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value and an address. It is no more than that.
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It has a financial value because of how that it
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was set up. But it's data with a value and an address.
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Transactions completed using crypto are maintained
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in a public ledger. So a blockchain.
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And because of that, they're super secure. They are checked and
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rechecked and they are very hard to hack. So the
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issue with people saying, oh, it's fake currency and it's
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really not like the same as cash or the underwritten gold of
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the US Treasury, that is true.
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But it has a different way of being
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confirmed in a different way of being restauranty. And it's
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just a different exchange mechanism. So as soon as we start to
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see it that way and see it used for certain industries that way,
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it may become a little bit more mainstream and understood
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in what we are doing. But as a side,
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in order to get cryptocurrency, you have to have a digital wallet.
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And in order to get cryptocurrency in that digital wallet,
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you actually use real money. Okay. So you can purchase cryptocurrency
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mining, though, for a while, too. I know how common that is now.
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But there was mining, though, too, right? Yes. You can buy certain equipment
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and it would essentially mine Bitcoin
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or whatever. Yes. So the other piece of that mining that
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Ashley says that could be from actively
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mining something and problem solving to get paid in
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tokens or in cryptocurrency coins.
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And another piece of that mining could be if
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I'm going to confirm what's going on in
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the ledger itself, maybe I'm going to solve a small
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puzzle piece and then for solving that,
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I will get paid a small rate, a pittance of
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crypto coin for doing that. So there's other
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ways to make money. But truly, if you want to trade it or you
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want to do something in large value, you usually exchange
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real money into cryptocurrency and it's in the stock
15:17.986 --> 15:22.074
market. So it can change the value can change just
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like real money and then
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financial transactions performed without the help of a third party. So again, no banks,
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no government. If you're using an application,
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it's really not a company
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owned application for the purpose of owning what you are using it for.
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So they don't own your crypto. They don't own your money, right.
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They don't own anything that means money.
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So we'll cover it in a second. But NFT would be
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kind of a version of cryptocurrency that isn't
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financial per se.
15:59.210 --> 16:03.178
So cryptocurrency features, you can imagine the pros or the secure
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transactions. No permission needed to use. You just download an app and
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you're able to use it. Get a wallet. Right.
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They're fast. They're like under two minutes beginning
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to end anywhere in the world. The locations of the participants
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is just completely irrelevant. You can do this with anyone in the world.
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Your identity can be hidden in the same way and there is no
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physical form. It is all virtual and no central banking system.
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And some of these are kind of as of yet. I can see maybe
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we would get some hybrids out there in the future, but this
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is how it works today.
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And of course cons, they're completely irreversible.
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You do get one kind of trigger that says,
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Are you sure? Right, if you want to create this transaction or perform
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this transaction. But once you've done that, they're irreversible.
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And like I said, you have to get that other person to pay you back.
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If you've purchased something and you want the money back, that sort of thing.
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There is a public transparency of the transaction details and
17:06.504 --> 17:11.230
it isn't in full and it isn't easily kind of discerned.
17:11.730 --> 17:16.430
A distributed ledger is public. It usually is just printed
17:16.490 --> 17:19.994
up to a server and it is publicly viewable
17:20.042 --> 17:23.782
and readable. But the beauty of it is you can't access it and do anything
17:23.856 --> 17:27.490
with it without the hash, which is just a piece,
17:27.660 --> 17:31.426
just a key that you can access the network itself with
17:31.548 --> 17:35.662
and without the trust of the network. So even though you can see numbers and
17:35.676 --> 17:39.058
data and things, you don't see what the transactions mean and what they
17:39.084 --> 17:42.646
actually did, it's just stored cryptographically, stored data,
17:42.708 --> 17:45.862
I guess. But if somebody could get
17:45.876 --> 17:48.898
a hold of that and figure out what you were doing with a lot of
17:48.924 --> 17:52.354
effort, they may be able to get in there
17:52.392 --> 17:56.086
and act like they are part of
17:56.268 --> 18:00.190
the network itself and that they are
18:00.240 --> 18:03.842
looking to provide pieces to the consensus.
18:03.986 --> 18:07.874
And if they do it in a way that is against three quarters
18:07.922 --> 18:11.638
of the people there, they might influence outcomes. So if they put
18:11.664 --> 18:15.154
in there, I don't trust this transaction nine times a day.
18:15.312 --> 18:18.842
They might be blocking transactions that are true and good, but they're
18:18.926 --> 18:22.462
blocking them from occurring, which could be a problem, right?
18:22.476 --> 18:26.030
You're blocking payments from happening. You're blocking transactions
18:26.090 --> 18:29.690
from occurring like they should. There are ways to influence
18:29.750 --> 18:33.242
networks like that as being part of the network and being just a malicious
18:33.326 --> 18:37.570
actor. And you can do that by seeing
18:37.620 --> 18:40.978
this public piece and guessing at what it
18:41.004 --> 18:44.458
would be for who's using it, and then trying to be part of that
18:44.484 --> 18:48.154
group. So there's a lot of theft of
18:48.192 --> 18:52.346
identity and just distrust
18:52.418 --> 18:55.922
involved there with anybody new coming in. And that's
18:55.946 --> 18:58.906
why there's all these checks, to make sure people are part of the system,
18:58.968 --> 19:02.278
that they are appropriately vetted and that
19:02.304 --> 19:05.520
they have the correct hash keys, anything, right.
19:06.870 --> 19:10.274
And then the other piece of user base behavior, the tracing
19:10.322 --> 19:13.510
and tracking, it's kind of difficult and it could be
19:13.620 --> 19:17.002
a Con. Just if there's theft, if there
19:17.016 --> 19:20.578
are problems going on, tax evasion, things like
19:20.604 --> 19:24.374
that. And by the way, if you make money in cryptocurrency,
19:24.422 --> 19:27.600
you do need to put that on your tax form.
19:27.990 --> 19:31.200
Well, I don't think there's any problem with that right now.
19:32.070 --> 19:34.140
Yeah, nobody's making any money.
19:35.850 --> 19:38.698
Okay. And I alluded to this a little bit, but here's a picture graph that
19:38.724 --> 19:42.430
just helps show you how changes are made on a blockchain.
19:43.170 --> 19:46.678
So at the far left person a wants to make
19:46.704 --> 19:50.230
a change to the blockchain. They create that change,
19:50.340 --> 19:54.062
they use the hash to do it, and this change will create a new block.
19:54.206 --> 19:57.758
This block is actually broadcast all the computers on the distributed network
19:57.794 --> 20:01.438
from peer to peer there. And those computers approve or disapprove the
20:01.464 --> 20:04.654
change if it's unanimous or if it's set up to be
20:04.752 --> 20:08.662
a consensus rules where you have a
20:08.676 --> 20:11.398
good majority or whatnot, depending on how it's set up,
20:11.544 --> 20:15.142
they approve it, and then the new block is actually added to
20:15.156 --> 20:19.478
the chain and it's permanent. So it's really straightforward.
20:19.634 --> 20:22.690
It's very clear on how this happens,
20:22.860 --> 20:26.326
where you will get lost when you get an inventor reading this stuff to you
20:26.388 --> 20:30.158
is in the data and in all of the rigmarole
20:30.194 --> 20:33.514
that goes into the cryptography and the back and forth going
20:33.552 --> 20:35.962
on, it's usually not clear.
20:36.156 --> 20:39.478
So when I pull inventions like this, and I've only done three
20:39.504 --> 20:43.042
or four myself, but I have been very motivated to
20:43.056 --> 20:46.558
say, let's go through a flow chart, let's do
20:46.584 --> 20:50.218
a transaction. What happens in your system so that I can see
20:50.364 --> 20:53.758
if it's different than a typical blockchain system and so that
20:53.784 --> 20:57.058
I can see where each piece of data is
20:57.144 --> 21:00.754
being used and how much importance put
21:00.792 --> 21:04.042
on it. Because if it's just a hash, it's just a
21:04.056 --> 21:07.874
hash. And if you haven't created any interesting data structure
21:07.922 --> 21:11.402
that's new in the industry, I don't care. We'll just call it a hash
21:11.426 --> 21:15.358
and be done with it. But if there's something new about it, it's another piece
21:15.384 --> 21:19.078
of invention that we have to dig into. So by making them
21:19.104 --> 21:22.198
go through a flow chart themselves and go
21:22.224 --> 21:25.920
through one transaction manually, it helps that process.
21:29.430 --> 21:33.214
One of the applications I had written years ago ended up with so
21:33.312 --> 21:37.082
many figures in it, just showing how the data moved
21:37.106 --> 21:40.958
around. And it was 2019.
21:41.054 --> 21:44.446
So it wasn't brand new crypto and blockchain tech,
21:44.508 --> 21:48.360
but it was newer and newish. So we didn't know
21:48.690 --> 21:52.294
what would be interesting and what would be patentable and what was
21:52.332 --> 21:56.254
out there. It was just too difficult at the time to figure out the
21:56.292 --> 21:59.638
search structure and the prior art and who was
21:59.664 --> 22:02.782
doing what. A lot of it was done in China first.
22:02.856 --> 22:06.370
And so you've got a lot of Chinese art that isn't available quite yet
22:06.420 --> 22:09.610
because it was in public. So it was kind of messy.
22:12.010 --> 22:15.026
That first one is not through the patent system. So I have no idea if
22:15.028 --> 22:17.800
I did it right, did it wrong, can fix it, whatever.
22:20.110 --> 22:24.638
Okay. And so a cryptocurrency coin example here to
22:24.664 --> 22:28.298
push this through a blockchain with crypto, just so you understand kind of
22:28.324 --> 22:31.538
how that could happen. You would start with the
22:31.564 --> 22:34.446
initial creation of a coin, like a Bitcoin,
22:34.578 --> 22:37.734
and every transaction would be confirmed and stored in a ledger.
22:37.782 --> 22:42.054
So a blockchain, and that involves identical
22:42.222 --> 22:45.498
copies of that transaction that are distributed among
22:45.534 --> 22:48.650
peers, maintaining this public blockchain.
22:49.090 --> 22:53.090
And it's not just the transaction, it's the entire ledger every
22:53.140 --> 22:56.680
time, by the way, that goes out, typically. And it's large,
22:58.450 --> 23:01.754
but the way digital data
23:01.792 --> 23:05.294
works today, it's no big deal that it's that large, but it is
23:05.332 --> 23:07.730
large and it gets larger with each transaction.
23:10.310 --> 23:14.482
That actually public ledger, though it doesn't include information about real world identities
23:14.566 --> 23:18.762
of owners of the coin. It's just basically an address,
23:18.956 --> 23:22.554
kind of similar to an account number, but it's like a data address,
23:22.712 --> 23:26.660
and it's a balance of what the coin is for each account.
23:27.230 --> 23:31.378
And then the digital wallets themselves actually use encrypted electronic
23:31.414 --> 23:35.350
signatures, and they serve as kind of the cryptographic proof
23:35.530 --> 23:38.658
that this transaction originated at this owner of the
23:38.684 --> 23:43.374
wallet. Right. And then to
23:43.412 --> 23:46.938
record transaction to the public ledger. This is actually getting into
23:46.964 --> 23:50.274
the mining aspect. So miners are really
23:50.372 --> 23:53.838
known as kind of decentralized computing systems that are
23:53.864 --> 23:57.390
participating to support the public ledger. And that
23:57.440 --> 24:01.890
means everyone on the network could be a minor and
24:01.940 --> 24:05.674
they would approve the transaction by working to solve some sort of increasingly
24:05.722 --> 24:07.100
complex problem.
24:08.870 --> 24:12.298
And the first minor would solve a puzzle and add a block representing
24:12.334 --> 24:16.126
the transaction. You can see how it can get kind of complex
24:16.198 --> 24:19.974
with what you have to do in order to mine. And there are
24:20.012 --> 24:23.838
different ways of mining that's just one way. And then
24:23.864 --> 24:26.478
once the block is mined and added to the ledger itself,
24:26.564 --> 24:29.986
everything's been approved, and all conforming transactions
24:30.058 --> 24:34.278
are permanent. The miner who actually helped to
24:34.364 --> 24:38.250
approve the transaction is rewarded with a small transaction fee.
24:38.570 --> 24:41.286
And that is the proof of work.
24:41.468 --> 24:44.938
Okay. So if you hear proof of work or you hear proof of stake,
24:45.094 --> 24:48.402
proof of stake would be I've bought in enough that I am a
24:48.416 --> 24:51.822
member and I have a stake in this network. So there are a couple of
24:51.836 --> 24:54.810
ways to do that, and you'll see these through the industry.
24:55.910 --> 24:59.406
Okay. Next definition. And I hope last for you.
24:59.528 --> 25:02.938
What is an NFP? That's a non bungable token.
25:03.094 --> 25:07.042
And an NFP could be a piece of unique digital artwork,
25:07.126 --> 25:10.726
a domain name, a rare book, an ingame item,
25:10.858 --> 25:13.914
a unique sneaker in a limited run fashion line,
25:14.072 --> 25:17.698
an event ticket or coupon, an essay, a digital
25:17.794 --> 25:22.530
collectible of sorts, like a bitmap, a unique bitmap,
25:23.030 --> 25:26.986
but basically it's non fengible.
25:27.058 --> 25:30.522
And it's a nonfungible token because it's one
25:30.536 --> 25:33.774
of a kind. It represents a real world item or like
25:33.812 --> 25:37.698
digital content. And it also uses blockchain to digitally record
25:37.784 --> 25:41.838
transactions that occur with NFT. The main difference
25:41.924 --> 25:45.174
between an NFT and a cryptocurrency, though, there's no
25:45.212 --> 25:48.418
fungible trade amongst NFPs because they are unique
25:48.454 --> 25:52.306
representations of assets and no one NFP
25:52.378 --> 25:54.630
is exactly the same as another NFT.
25:55.430 --> 25:59.430
In cryptocurrency, one Bitcoin is exactly the same
25:59.480 --> 26:03.150
as another Bitcoin, and that just doesn't happen with NFT.
26:03.530 --> 26:07.066
So this becomes yet another way of trade.
26:07.258 --> 26:11.202
Okay. Yet another system of
26:11.336 --> 26:15.274
protecting and trading these items. On the left, the digital
26:15.322 --> 26:18.260
artwork, the domain name, a book. Right.
26:19.670 --> 26:23.358
Something, though, it looks like you are talking about this, because I think this
26:23.384 --> 26:26.958
is a frequently misrepresented bit about NFT is
26:26.984 --> 26:30.510
that you're not putting the item on the blockchain, you're putting
26:30.560 --> 26:33.606
a receipt on the blockchain that indicates something
26:33.668 --> 26:38.134
else that is often not necessarily supported.
26:38.242 --> 26:41.574
And so, sure, I've got a fancy thing on a blockchain that
26:41.612 --> 26:44.850
says I own this JPEG on a server somewhere.
26:45.830 --> 26:49.758
Yes. That is fundamentally different from having the shoe in
26:49.784 --> 26:53.538
real life. That is fundamentally different from having the JPEG on
26:53.564 --> 26:57.450
your hard drive. Because also, if you have that Jpg up
26:57.500 --> 27:01.074
on a public server that anyone can go look at, anyone can go
27:01.112 --> 27:04.580
right click or screenshot the image and keep it themselves.
27:05.270 --> 27:09.286
The only thing you're actually paying for is a receipt,
27:09.478 --> 27:12.894
not the thing itself. Yes. So you can imagine maybe
27:12.932 --> 27:15.786
like original artwork way back in the day,
27:15.968 --> 27:18.330
if we had Monets as NFPs,
27:19.130 --> 27:22.818
they would maybe grow even more so in cost
27:22.904 --> 27:27.022
and in value, because you could use that NFT
27:27.106 --> 27:30.310
structure to authenticate in an easier
27:30.370 --> 27:34.054
way than having the Museum involved. In a cheaper way than having the Museum involved
27:34.102 --> 27:36.500
and anybody else who would have to verify. Right.
27:37.130 --> 27:40.582
Okay. They are also deployed as individual chains
27:40.606 --> 27:44.074
of ownership of smart contracts, and they track a specific asset.
27:44.122 --> 27:48.006
So that's what I mean. If you track the artwork over time, you might
27:48.068 --> 27:51.750
create more value of that artwork because it is an original.
27:53.870 --> 27:57.706
And like Dan said, it shows chains of ownership.
27:57.838 --> 28:01.198
It shows the data that you own this piece, but it doesn't
28:01.234 --> 28:04.686
mean you physically have it in your possession. Yeah.
28:04.808 --> 28:08.326
And that's also where I'm going to protest the provenance,
28:08.398 --> 28:11.778
because, sure, you can make a digital receipt that says, I own
28:11.804 --> 28:15.802
a Monet, but then somebody can go steal the monetary.
28:15.826 --> 28:19.278
Yes. And you lose it.
28:19.304 --> 28:21.380
Right. Because it's stuff.
28:22.970 --> 28:26.578
Okay. So before we go back to those three concepts,
28:26.614 --> 28:29.814
I wanted to just give you this evolution of the Web. I thought this was
28:29.852 --> 28:33.318
interesting. This is from a podcast, The Tim Ferris Show.
28:33.464 --> 28:36.702
And it was interesting to see how the web had changed over time and how
28:36.716 --> 28:39.980
they categorized it. I really never categorized it.
28:41.390 --> 28:45.414
So Web 1.0 was basically 1990 to about four.
28:45.572 --> 28:49.386
It was open platform. Nobody really owned it or controlled it
28:49.508 --> 28:53.120
outside. Maybe the government. Right. And started as a government thing.
28:53.810 --> 28:57.258
And products and content were limited. There wasn't a lot of
28:57.284 --> 29:00.140
blogs and a lot of user created content.
29:01.430 --> 29:04.674
This is from a magazine. And I put it up here in a digital form
29:04.712 --> 29:08.002
on the web. And the advertisements on the Internet were banned
29:08.026 --> 29:11.050
at the time. And you have very few content creators.
29:11.110 --> 29:14.840
It just wasn't what it is today.
29:16.610 --> 29:20.370
Okay. And today this is about 2004 to now
29:20.420 --> 29:24.378
and maybe a few years from now. This is open and closed platform
29:24.464 --> 29:28.580
options. And what that means is in an open platform option.
29:29.030 --> 29:32.802
I've chosen to purchase my domain and
29:32.816 --> 29:36.402
I run things from my domain. I might use a
29:36.416 --> 29:39.560
Google or a Microsoft server setup to
29:40.310 --> 29:43.820
host, but I don't use Google services and I don't use
29:44.630 --> 29:48.486
Google's platform. So I'm not using Gmail, I'm not using Facebook to provide
29:48.548 --> 29:52.294
content. I'm not using Blogger as a basis
29:52.342 --> 29:56.082
to write my blog. I have got my own domain. The other side of
29:56.096 --> 29:59.838
that is a closed platform, and that is actually using
29:59.924 --> 30:03.406
some of the bigger names out of complete and total ease
30:03.538 --> 30:07.114
to be able to upload content quickly and easily
30:07.162 --> 30:10.220
and formatted without a whole lot of effort on the user part.
30:11.630 --> 30:14.818
And right now we are in the age of rich Internet applications.
30:14.854 --> 30:18.366
We've got interactive Google Maps, social media,
30:18.428 --> 30:22.134
Semantic Web. And in the future, we're looking at this Web
30:22.172 --> 30:25.246
3.0. This is something that is underway.
30:25.318 --> 30:28.834
You do see a little bit of this these days. It is likely
30:28.882 --> 30:32.730
going to be open platform, and it may or may not use blockchain.
30:33.230 --> 30:36.858
This decentralizes a lot of things. This takes the data
30:36.944 --> 30:40.774
put up there owned by users and data generators and fewer
30:40.822 --> 30:44.226
large companies. And another way
30:44.228 --> 30:48.138
to look at this. I put this together because I thought this was
30:48.164 --> 30:51.462
interesting, too. Web 1.0 was a read only.
30:51.596 --> 30:54.486
You had your Netscapes, your AOL, your Microsoft, Google,
30:54.548 --> 30:57.654
and it wasn't a true read only. You could make some changes, but it was
30:57.692 --> 31:01.362
typically read only. Web 2.0 is kind of a read write,
31:01.436 --> 31:04.954
and that's where we are now. You've got big Google, Apple, Facebook,
31:05.002 --> 31:08.742
Spotify, et cetera, Twitter. They own large
31:08.816 --> 31:12.078
portions of market share for what
31:12.104 --> 31:15.666
people are doing on the web and Web 3.0.
31:15.788 --> 31:18.862
This will likely be open and users will be able to build and orchestrate
31:18.886 --> 31:22.402
their own platforms and content a little bit easier. And they'll
31:22.426 --> 31:25.498
keep this out of the big data CEO power structure,
31:25.654 --> 31:29.434
which means data hoarding, narratives and censorship can be owned and operated
31:29.482 --> 31:33.402
by the people. So we'll see where we go. But I thought
31:33.596 --> 31:35.240
the evolution was interesting.
31:36.590 --> 31:40.114
So I have a question for the group. What does this Web evolution
31:40.222 --> 31:44.010
blockchain and NFT tech mean for IP ownership?
31:44.330 --> 31:48.018
Will we see some sort of change in the patent system for inventions that
31:48.044 --> 31:50.190
involve digital content and software?
31:51.590 --> 31:54.486
Are we going to see new protection art units? Are we going to see a
31:54.488 --> 31:58.078
new type of category outside of patents and copywriting? Dan,
31:58.114 --> 31:59.900
I bet you have an opinion on this.
32:05.370 --> 32:08.520
He may be stepped away. No, sorry.
32:10.110 --> 32:13.942
I'll be honest, I had tuned out for just a moment.
32:14.076 --> 32:17.134
Oh, no, for texting me, so I wasn't quite sure he called me out.
32:17.172 --> 32:20.820
Now I feel like I need to say something intelligent. I wasn't back
32:22.810 --> 32:26.858
in there. I'm sorry. And there's a lot of data there too, so I know
32:27.004 --> 32:30.518
it's getting late. No, I apologize. I don't mean to call
32:30.544 --> 32:34.034
you out on that, but my thought was, are you
32:34.072 --> 32:37.554
thinking we might see some changes in the patent
32:37.602 --> 32:41.490
system around the blockchain and NFP property ownership
32:41.550 --> 32:45.014
technology I had up here? Maybe new
32:45.052 --> 32:48.242
protection units, or maybe we would have a new category outside of patents and
32:48.256 --> 32:52.094
copywriting. Go ahead. Yeah,
32:52.252 --> 32:56.090
I see this. A new art unit I think makes
32:56.140 --> 33:00.054
definite sense with just the sheer market interest and number of people filing
33:00.102 --> 33:03.722
stuff on it. It would behoove the patent office to have and
33:03.736 --> 33:07.240
I'm honestly would be surprised if they don't have a new art unit already
33:07.870 --> 33:11.430
with the interest of it additional forms of intellectual
33:11.490 --> 33:14.714
property in response to this
33:14.752 --> 33:18.618
type of stuff. Like do we now have something Besides patents and Copyright that's
33:18.654 --> 33:23.746
specific to entries
33:23.938 --> 33:26.550
on the spreadsheet that is a blockchain?
33:28.430 --> 33:33.762
I'm not sure. Yeah, well, maybe kind
33:33.776 --> 33:37.398
of a transactional thing might be something different because
33:37.424 --> 33:41.118
you don't get a Copyright and
33:41.144 --> 33:44.958
I guess you could still kind of print maybe Ms. Right, because right
33:44.984 --> 33:49.050
now the Copyright system requires hard copies of things.
33:49.100 --> 33:52.734
I guess you can maybe still put NFT on a
33:52.892 --> 33:56.350
disk. The NFT is just a receipt.
33:56.470 --> 34:00.018
And so with the Copyright. So cool.
34:00.104 --> 34:03.502
You've got a unique image. I've got an NFT that's
34:03.526 --> 34:07.830
just somewhere on a spreadsheet that says my
34:07.880 --> 34:11.622
username string is associated with this bit of data
34:11.696 --> 34:16.158
that indicates the receipt towards we
34:16.184 --> 34:20.490
all just sort of agree that it indicates a receipt towards this unique image.
34:21.050 --> 34:25.854
I don't see how that is anything beyond like
34:25.892 --> 34:29.658
regular. If I wanted to go now print a bunch of copies of
34:29.744 --> 34:33.090
that and distribute that and sell those images,
34:33.470 --> 34:36.798
I don't quite see how that's anything independent from do
34:36.824 --> 34:40.662
I have the Copyright? I mean, perhaps you
34:40.676 --> 34:44.142
could write a human law that says a
34:44.156 --> 34:47.946
national law that says the
34:48.008 --> 34:51.658
people acknowledge this particular distributed
34:51.694 --> 34:55.940
ledger as indicating towards
34:56.750 --> 35:00.810
Copyright. So if you want to have the Copyright for
35:00.920 --> 35:04.534
a given piece of work, you must have somehow,
35:04.582 --> 35:08.454
but then you get over the whole anonymity of
35:08.492 --> 35:11.646
what the cryptography of the usernames is supposed to be.
35:11.828 --> 35:15.270
That okay, you must publicly let us know who you are,
35:15.380 --> 35:19.206
and you publicly must have visible on this blockchain your
35:19.268 --> 35:23.430
receipt that has a certain indication towards a given work of art.
35:23.540 --> 35:27.862
And if you satisfy that, then we all agree that you have Copyright
35:27.946 --> 35:30.870
towards the object indicated in your receipt.
35:31.670 --> 35:36.102
And then I don't see how that's any more helpful than just a
35:36.116 --> 35:39.450
Copyright. A Copyright. We the people agree
35:39.500 --> 35:42.980
to form a database that anyone can access
35:43.670 --> 35:47.180
of who owns the Copyright forgiven works of art,
35:48.530 --> 35:52.062
whether it's distributed or not. I think the bigger point
35:52.076 --> 35:56.010
that brings up, though, is that elements of Web
35:56.060 --> 35:59.958
Three are fundamentally in
35:59.984 --> 36:04.158
opposition to the
36:04.244 --> 36:08.046
general premise of the intellectual property system.
36:08.108 --> 36:11.838
Right. Because, as Dan points out, the whole intellectual property system is based
36:11.864 --> 36:15.802
on the idea that in exchange for some limited monopoly,
36:15.946 --> 36:19.758
some ownership. Right. Whatever I give
36:19.784 --> 36:23.206
to the public knowledge and share knowledge
36:23.278 --> 36:27.702
and information technology, whatever with the public in
36:27.716 --> 36:31.590
exchange for those rights. But the whole essence of aspects of Web
36:31.640 --> 36:34.954
Three, the blockchain elements,
36:35.062 --> 36:39.054
NFPs and things like that is all around anonymity or at least
36:39.152 --> 36:41.900
as much anonymity as you want to have with it.
36:42.890 --> 36:46.098
It seems like those two elements are kind of in opposition to
36:46.124 --> 36:50.000
one another. It's really interesting.
36:50.570 --> 36:54.462
I'm not a Copyright attorney. I wonder if
36:54.476 --> 36:58.150
an artist makes a physical painting
36:58.270 --> 37:02.118
their own painting, and then they sell that painting, the original painting to
37:02.144 --> 37:05.394
someone owns that painting. Can the owner of that
37:05.432 --> 37:08.900
painting make prints of that painting and then sell it?
37:09.470 --> 37:13.578
So does buying an original painting confer the Copyright to you?
37:13.724 --> 37:17.058
Or is the Copyright still owned by the owner or by
37:17.084 --> 37:20.338
the creator? By the artist owned by the creator.
37:20.374 --> 37:24.090
Because unless there's like a true assignment, if you think about it like I buy
37:24.140 --> 37:27.954
Cat and a Hat, that doesn't mean that I can take
37:27.992 --> 37:31.902
Cat in the Hat and decide to make a
37:31.916 --> 37:35.120
million copies of it and go sell. Right? Right.
37:36.350 --> 37:40.342
Some kind of work for higher provision or some kind of actual assignment.
37:40.486 --> 37:43.758
Right. Even if Dr. Seuss wrote down Cat
37:43.784 --> 37:46.878
in the Hat on some pieces of paper and you bought the original, doesn't mean
37:46.904 --> 37:50.550
that you can copy it and sell it. Right. Same thing,
37:50.660 --> 37:54.162
I think probably from logic would go from it
37:54.236 --> 37:58.002
would follow for an NFT, if you're buying an original piece of
37:58.016 --> 38:01.482
digital art, that doesn't give you the Copyright to it.
38:01.556 --> 38:06.982
Right? Right. If the
38:06.996 --> 38:10.860
creator of the work of art or the creative work,
38:12.210 --> 38:15.698
they can be copyrighted. But then again, they're also revealing
38:15.734 --> 38:19.306
who they are and the anonymity goes away assuming that they want to
38:19.308 --> 38:20.290
be anonymous.
38:23.950 --> 38:28.010
Digital art is infinitely reproducible
38:28.690 --> 38:32.526
to the easiest extreme. The fundamental difference between owning
38:32.658 --> 38:36.578
the Mona Lisa and a copy of the Mona Lisa is quite clear,
38:36.664 --> 38:40.120
I think, to all of us, because of the provenance and the history of
38:40.510 --> 38:44.006
the physical good that is the Mona Lisa versus a copy of
38:44.008 --> 38:47.618
the Mona Lisa. Right. Whereas it's just
38:47.644 --> 38:49.550
a JPEG or a PNG.
38:51.070 --> 38:54.578
It's an argument, I feel like, for and against NFT, because what
38:54.604 --> 38:58.442
NFPs do, in a way, is make it possible to have
38:58.516 --> 39:02.298
an original of a digital piece of art. Where otherwise
39:02.334 --> 39:05.990
what, are you going to sell someone's computer? No, but again, you need the
39:06.040 --> 39:09.302
art on. It doesn't make sense. You don't have the
39:09.436 --> 39:14.330
original. You have a receipt saying that I
39:14.380 --> 39:18.100
spent money towards this thing in a weird way. There is no
39:18.550 --> 39:19.610
original.
39:22.550 --> 39:26.362
I mean, this is my maybe naivete around the space because there's
39:26.386 --> 39:31.578
definitely some you
39:31.604 --> 39:35.490
have this receipt, but isn't there a way for you
39:35.540 --> 39:39.018
to view the thing that you have a receipt for, like even
39:39.044 --> 39:42.740
in some kind of digital, like in a digital wallet, you know what I mean?
39:43.250 --> 39:47.430
So putting the image itself on the blockchain would be
39:47.540 --> 39:50.922
absurdly. Wasteful a huge amount of data, slow everything
39:50.996 --> 39:54.978
down. So no one actually does that. What is commonly done is
39:55.004 --> 39:58.278
that there will be some sort of URL that can be readily or some
39:58.304 --> 40:01.782
string that can readily spit out just a link
40:01.916 --> 40:05.346
to some external hosting site, like room,
40:05.468 --> 40:09.850
essentially for you to view the thing except for it's on the public ledger
40:10.030 --> 40:13.378
so people can access it. And so also, you don't
40:13.414 --> 40:17.046
necessarily have control. You are trusting the
40:17.108 --> 40:21.006
host of the image that it will continue to be there.
40:21.188 --> 40:24.858
So hilariously. You could buy an NFT for something hosted on
40:24.884 --> 40:27.870
a site, you spend your money and then, oh,
40:27.920 --> 40:31.198
the company hosting it couldn't pay the server couldn't
40:31.234 --> 40:34.158
pay for the server space anymore. So it all gets pulled away.
40:34.304 --> 40:36.500
Now your URL indicates nothing.
40:38.150 --> 40:41.694
Yeah, I think this goes back to Kristen's first slide, pretty much, which is
40:41.732 --> 40:45.754
trust. You are trusting an artist,
40:45.802 --> 40:49.602
you're trusting the system that you're putting your money down and that
40:49.736 --> 40:53.454
everyone agrees that you own the quote, unquote original, whatever that
40:53.492 --> 40:56.878
means. You're right, Dan. Exactly. It's just a receipt. But there's
40:56.914 --> 41:00.260
this trust that's been built up and
41:01.010 --> 41:02.480
yeah, I don't know,
41:04.490 --> 41:09.550
a couple of random thoughts. I know we're almost done, but like cryptocurrency
41:09.610 --> 41:13.062
in general, there's a lot of people talking about it now. And what does it
41:13.076 --> 41:16.362
mean? What is it for and what is it really good for a lot of
41:16.376 --> 41:19.858
smart people, at least I don't have a super strong opinion
41:19.894 --> 41:23.478
either way. But a lot of smart people have said it's basically just the
41:23.504 --> 41:27.874
greater fool. There's no value inherent.
41:27.922 --> 41:31.326
There's no inherent value. And people argue back and forth about that.
41:31.448 --> 41:34.650
That's the real crux of the issue is their inherent value. So people
41:34.700 --> 41:38.430
argue about it. But NFTs and crypto, I think they're very
41:38.480 --> 41:43.054
interesting and sort of like revolutionary on one side from the economic
41:43.222 --> 41:46.746
kind of analysis of it. Like, what are these things really worth?
41:46.808 --> 41:50.214
Do they really have value? Do you really own something or not?
41:50.372 --> 41:53.482
From the patent side and the technology side, I actually think it's
41:53.506 --> 41:56.398
a lot more straightforward. You've got software,
41:56.554 --> 42:00.106
you've got encryption, you've got cryptography, you've got blockchain,
42:00.178 --> 42:04.254
you've got these real inventions, these real technical things that
42:04.292 --> 42:07.726
people are doing that you can look at and patent.
42:07.918 --> 42:11.514
So in that sense, no easier or
42:11.552 --> 42:14.960
harder than AI or ML or
42:15.650 --> 42:19.002
all the same issues with them. Not with 101,
42:19.076 --> 42:22.242
basically. Right. I think we'll be there for a
42:22.256 --> 42:26.434
crypto and blockchain. But I don't know, it's the controversy.
42:26.602 --> 42:29.418
If you will or the weirdness of them. I feel like it's more on the
42:29.444 --> 42:32.502
economic socioeconomic side of
42:32.516 --> 42:36.318
things, less on the technical and patent stuff that would
42:36.344 --> 42:39.786
be relevant for a patent. I think the one
42:39.848 --> 42:43.340
most interesting argument I've seen for
42:43.790 --> 42:47.038
NFTs, at least Cryptos and other Things NFT,
42:47.074 --> 42:50.878
is that it allows artists to potentially reap
42:50.914 --> 42:54.538
more benefit than they've historically been able to reap from their creative
42:54.574 --> 42:58.158
works. Right. Because people may be more willing to give
42:58.184 --> 43:02.062
them money in support of them through this mechanism.
43:02.146 --> 43:05.886
That's maybe more accessible or easier to find
43:05.948 --> 43:09.798
them than it would have otherwise been. And so I can
43:09.824 --> 43:12.934
now put my money and share my money with lots of different artists
43:12.982 --> 43:15.666
who I believe in support want to whatever.
43:15.848 --> 43:19.002
Whereas maybe they were less findable before.
43:19.076 --> 43:22.750
So that's an interesting aspect
43:22.810 --> 43:26.662
of the NFT. I'll say as someone who participates
43:26.746 --> 43:30.826
in a fair amount of online art production,
43:31.018 --> 43:34.102
publication discourse,
43:34.246 --> 43:37.794
exchange right now, NFPs are making
43:37.832 --> 43:41.146
it more complicated. You have to go through the rigor of setting up the wallet,
43:41.278 --> 43:44.862
setting up, getting all your hashes. You have to deal with
43:44.936 --> 43:48.618
the opaqueness to a certain extent. We're talking
43:48.644 --> 43:52.218
about how public and open the
43:52.244 --> 43:55.890
blockchain allows transactions to be. There are many
43:55.940 --> 43:59.326
new studies demonstrating how much of it is wash trading.
43:59.398 --> 44:02.698
There is far less of an interest than the people selling
44:02.734 --> 44:06.378
NFTs want artists to believe are there are many cases of
44:06.404 --> 44:10.218
artists going in trying to
44:10.244 --> 44:13.702
sell their art as NFPs. They find themselves overwhelmed
44:13.786 --> 44:17.554
by the entry costs of how you actually go and Mint
44:17.602 --> 44:21.150
your NFT. And then there's no actual
44:21.200 --> 44:24.846
market for it because the examples of things going at crazy
44:24.908 --> 44:28.306
prices. A lot of that is wash trading, where bad actors
44:28.378 --> 44:32.410
are selling it to themselves to fabricate seeming
44:32.470 --> 44:35.322
interest. On the other hand,
44:35.396 --> 44:39.406
there's already tons of ways to go celebrate and support the artists
44:39.478 --> 44:43.174
that you like. A lot of the artists who have public activity
44:43.222 --> 44:47.970
on the web, who have their open portfolios, they've got various
44:50.970 --> 44:54.610
web pages where you can throw with a credit card. It sounds like
44:54.660 --> 44:57.010
if you don't trust your credit card company, what are you going to do?
44:57.060 --> 45:00.502
But with credit card, with other already
45:00.576 --> 45:04.438
established digital payment systems, you can send them money.
45:04.584 --> 45:08.218
A lot of them have online merch stores. There are tons of ways to do
45:08.244 --> 45:11.962
that. And from a perspective on end, those have
45:11.976 --> 45:15.420
been far more healthy and successful for artists than
45:15.810 --> 45:19.318
trying to Mint NFTs and then sell them to
45:19.344 --> 45:22.906
a nonexistent audience. Okay, so it's kind
45:22.908 --> 45:26.086
of a difficult marketplace, you're saying? Yeah.
45:26.268 --> 45:29.446
Okay. So basically
45:29.508 --> 45:32.842
the strategy for these sorts of inventions, you're going to need to do
45:32.856 --> 45:34.870
a wider foreign filing.
45:36.750 --> 45:40.102
You want to do that because it actually has sales
45:40.176 --> 45:43.658
and in use occurrences as possible from any location. With a computing
45:43.694 --> 45:47.050
device, you're dealing with financial transactions which
45:47.100 --> 45:50.338
happen all over the world. And also one
45:50.364 --> 45:53.762
note, China is a huge player in inventions and companies for blockchain.
45:53.846 --> 45:56.170
So always file in China.
45:57.450 --> 46:01.802
And as far as what's out there right now, you've probably gotten thousands
46:01.886 --> 46:05.242
of blockchain or cryptocurrency sort of technology
46:05.376 --> 46:08.110
on file. There's not a whole lot allowed yet,
46:08.160 --> 46:11.542
maybe in the hundreds. So it's still an open market.
46:11.616 --> 46:15.238
So make sure you're mining those fields. If you have
46:15.264 --> 46:18.934
inventors who do things tangential to this and also
46:18.972 --> 46:22.574
litigation isn't super common yet, and as soon as somebody profits
46:22.622 --> 46:26.014
from it, these patents that will come. But right now
46:26.112 --> 46:29.290
it's kind of an open market. And then the other piece.
46:29.340 --> 46:33.022
Consider trade secrets before disclosing all your concepts in the patent application.
46:33.156 --> 46:36.698
This might be especially important if you do blockchain
46:36.734 --> 46:39.898
in a slightly different way if your cryptocurrency is new and
46:39.924 --> 46:42.550
different and functions differently than typical.
46:44.130 --> 46:47.278
When you're looking at the claims, this is going to look like method claims and
46:47.304 --> 46:50.578
system claims and computer readable medium claims, and they're all going
46:50.604 --> 46:53.582
to look very mirrored. You probably have a single method,
46:53.666 --> 46:57.394
a system that kind of copies that method, and a computer readable medium that
46:57.432 --> 47:00.060
also mirrors the method or system.
47:00.630 --> 47:04.478
And that is because I think you'll get a lot of restriction
47:04.514 --> 47:07.798
requirements if you do not do that in these fields. I think
47:07.824 --> 47:11.338
your claims would be different enough method wise that if you
47:11.364 --> 47:15.046
had two method claims that even were
47:15.108 --> 47:17.890
slightly different, I think you're going to get a restriction.
47:19.170 --> 47:22.382
Examples of potentially patentable core Technologies When you're
47:22.406 --> 47:26.170
interviewing inventors, you may see things like blockchain tech
47:26.220 --> 47:30.490
changes, distributed ledger changes, data structure differences.
47:31.050 --> 47:34.318
Remember, new data structures can be a way to
47:34.344 --> 47:37.706
get over a subject matter 101 rejection.
47:37.778 --> 47:42.158
So if you have a new data structure, describe it transaction
47:42.194 --> 47:45.082
protocols, processing and validation methods might be new.
47:45.216 --> 47:48.902
We've got digital wallet stuff and apps and software
47:48.926 --> 47:53.678
that might be new or work different than typical smart
47:53.714 --> 47:58.322
contract platforms, different ways of mining consensus methodologies
47:58.406 --> 48:01.690
services, applications of any of the bot
48:02.550 --> 48:05.674
It's software, and so it's wide open for
48:05.712 --> 48:06.670
combinations.
48:09.190 --> 48:12.762
Remember in the specification, get your subject matter eligibility
48:12.846 --> 48:16.358
stuff in there. It will happen. I don't see
48:16.384 --> 48:20.778
a way around this. You're adding business method, financial ideas,
48:20.934 --> 48:24.546
and software in general in like a package
48:24.618 --> 48:28.514
almost with these inventions. So I
48:28.552 --> 48:32.402
think you will see these rejections more often unless something changes in
48:32.416 --> 48:36.362
the landscape, but to avoid those. Building your descriptions for
48:36.376 --> 48:40.154
the advantages. Building your technical solutions to technical problems.
48:40.312 --> 48:44.260
Describe practical applications, describe improvements to technology,
48:44.590 --> 48:48.230
and add your specific results. Outcomes I don't always
48:48.280 --> 48:51.954
like to do this. Improvements to technology tends to denigrate prior
48:52.002 --> 48:54.474
art if you do them improperly.
48:54.642 --> 48:57.962
So be careful, but also get them in there for
48:57.976 --> 49:01.598
this type of technology because you will likely need to rely on
49:01.624 --> 49:05.450
them in office action responses and appeals.
49:06.550 --> 49:10.034
Example Advantages These inventions can maybe provide cost
49:10.072 --> 49:13.470
and error reduction, tamper resistance
49:13.590 --> 49:16.610
or security over conventional transactions,
49:16.990 --> 49:19.850
fraud deterrence over conventional transactions,
49:20.350 --> 49:24.410
and reduction in the errors of system failures over conventional transactions,
49:24.970 --> 49:27.902
and some of these might go the opposite way. So it just depends on what
49:27.916 --> 49:31.934
your invention would be. And then one
49:31.972 --> 49:34.970
last thing for the specification, adjust for open source.
49:35.650 --> 49:39.554
This software is typically open source. It is done so
49:39.592 --> 49:43.226
for a reason. It is in the public domain and
49:43.288 --> 49:46.420
you just want to be careful to cover in your application.
49:47.410 --> 49:51.794
Why is your innovation new or different? Or what problems that
49:51.832 --> 49:55.562
existed before did you solve and ensure you
49:55.576 --> 49:59.130
have included descriptions for aspects that are not part of the open source pieces?
49:59.190 --> 50:02.874
If you have several pieces that are not open source,
50:02.922 --> 50:06.062
make sure those are thoroughly described because you may need to
50:06.076 --> 50:09.482
rely on them. And the last thing that you
50:09.496 --> 50:13.134
can look at at your leisure, this was the patent I did in 2019
50:13.242 --> 50:16.838
patent application for Google. And it
50:16.864 --> 50:21.246
was basically about creating a self sovereign identity
50:21.318 --> 50:25.142
account and being able to host that account and
50:25.336 --> 50:30.014
let people control or not control that account without
50:30.172 --> 50:34.182
being a Google and Apple of Facebook. So this was a user
50:34.206 --> 50:37.818
owned account. They did their own thing. They used a distributed
50:37.854 --> 50:41.802
log technology here in the right hand corner. They used public keys and private keys
50:41.826 --> 50:44.918
for the crypto, and they had policies and permissions for their
50:44.944 --> 50:48.482
account. And basically they
50:48.496 --> 50:51.938
were able to set up a blockchain system for a
50:51.964 --> 50:55.718
user to own an account. This application in
50:55.744 --> 50:59.738
particular was about, can I provide access control? Can I
50:59.764 --> 51:02.966
provide device control and all using this account?
51:03.088 --> 51:06.566
Right. So maybe I have a building with a super, and the super
51:06.628 --> 51:09.760
owns three of the four
51:10.390 --> 51:13.818
apartments, and he wants to provide utilities and door
51:13.854 --> 51:18.090
locks and maybe rent payment possibilities.
51:18.150 --> 51:21.858
He can all do that through an account like this without being monitored
51:21.894 --> 51:26.258
by a third party and without having to rely on a third party too.
51:26.404 --> 51:29.982
This also means which can happen with a third party,
51:30.006 --> 51:33.458
but it means it can occur by
51:33.484 --> 51:37.538
the actual person who owns the account being able to provide access
51:37.624 --> 51:41.046
or provide things through the account to other users.
51:41.238 --> 51:45.270
So it's an interesting idea to have maybe an entire apartment
51:45.330 --> 51:49.658
building on the same network and being able to share
51:49.804 --> 51:53.140
and maybe share costs share.
51:54.190 --> 51:57.950
If I locked myself out, maybe my neighbor can unlock
51:58.270 --> 52:01.398
because I gave him permission earlier to unlock my door.
52:01.434 --> 52:05.260
Right, right. Things like that.
52:06.190 --> 52:10.646
Can I point out the irony of that application being
52:10.708 --> 52:14.150
owned by Google? Yes, you can.
52:14.260 --> 52:18.078
Believe me. So did the inventor. The inventor is just a brilliant
52:18.114 --> 52:21.700
UK man who does a lot of contracting for Google and
52:25.210 --> 52:28.610
just lovely the way he went through this.
52:28.780 --> 52:32.238
Every time he had a description, he would say, and unlike
52:32.274 --> 52:36.374
Google, he would describe his invention. And so it was
52:36.412 --> 52:39.950
great. It was great to see that even their engineering people thinking,
52:40.120 --> 52:43.910
yeah, back to the trusted environment.
52:45.670 --> 52:48.750
Yeah, exactly. Okay. Key takeaways
52:48.810 --> 52:52.334
are really just there's lots of innovations coming with blockchain web three
52:52.372 --> 52:56.130
might be an interesting growth step. And when drafting blockchains
52:56.250 --> 53:00.726
building help for yourself with that subject matter eligibility rejection
53:00.918 --> 53:04.058
content I mean, if it continues like it is,
53:04.084 --> 53:06.340
it will still be painful in this field.
53:08.930 --> 53:12.174
No end in sight. There no end in sight. All right, that's it.
53:12.212 --> 53:15.858
Any questions or comments? No, that was
53:15.884 --> 53:19.062
awesome. Good rundown of the space.
53:19.136 --> 53:23.250
Now when all the talking heads talk about these things now,
53:23.360 --> 53:26.806
I appreciate the nuance of the receipt
53:26.938 --> 53:30.980
versus the NFP the whole thing.
53:31.730 --> 53:34.940
I guess I understood the digital room thing, but I kind of thought,
53:36.290 --> 53:39.270
yeah, it was like way more accessible,
53:39.830 --> 53:44.142
potentially more controllable. So that's interesting. I didn't appreciate that.
53:44.336 --> 53:47.960
I didn't either. Thank you, Dan. Yeah,
53:49.430 --> 53:52.940
I told him earlier that it's happening. He already gone.
53:53.450 --> 53:56.010
Well, I think we're still recording.
53:59.730 --> 54:03.370
No worries. Well, thank you. All right,
54:03.420 --> 54:07.774
that's all for today, folks. Thanks for listening. And remember to check us out@aurorapatins.com
54:07.812 --> 54:11.294
for more great podcasts, blogs and videos covering all things patent
54:11.342 --> 54:14.326
strategy. And if you're an agent or attorney and would like to be part of
54:14.328 --> 54:18.178
the discussion or an inventor with a topic you'd like to hear discussed, email us
54:18.204 --> 54:21.998
at podcast@aurorapatins.com do remember that this podcast
54:22.034 --> 54:25.660
does not constitute legal advice and until next time, keep calm and patent on.
