Blockchain-enhanced contracts

Originally published at www.bernstein.io.

Discover how blockchain certificates can improve NDAs, licensing and technology transfer agreements, employment contracts, and much more.

Smart contracts? No, better contracts.

Contracts are legally binding agreements between two or more parties, and they pervade almost every aspect of our personal and business lives. Business owners and managers use contracts all the time in dealings with employees, partners, clients, suppliers, …

Quite often, contracts refer to information that, for various reasons (too large, too sensitive, too rapidly changing, …), might be problematic to include or refer to in the contract itself.

The consequent ambiguity may weaken or void the contract. The promise or set of promises the contract contains may become impossible to be legally enforced, and, if violated, the damaged party may be prevented from legal remedies.

This is a quite common scenario for innovative companies dealing with intellectual property assets. Most notable examples being: NDAs, licensing agreements, employment contracts, technology transfer agreements, …

The blockchain may easily solve this conundrum: relevant information and documents may be registered on the blockchain by embedding their cryptographic fingerprint (hash) in a transaction, and then using this transaction as a practical and convenient reference in contracts, therefore removing the aforementioned ambiguities and practical complexities.

Benefits — The resulting “blockchain-enhanced contract“ won’t reveal any sensitive data, while being very specific and therefore offering higher chances of enforcement. Additionally, contracts will be able to refer to any kind of textual and non-textual data: large datasets, software, multimedia, CAD files, 3D models, …

Blockchain certificates for better “paper and ink” contracts

Bernstein can conveniently enable companies to quickly generate certificates for their digital assets (know-how, trade secrets, business information, …) and use them in all kind of contracts.

• confidentiality agreements
• technology licensing contracts
• employment contracts

Read the full version of this article on www.bernstein.io and you will find additional insights and resources related to using blockchain certificates in contracts.