How Blockchain will Disrupt Intellectual Property
Blockchain Use Case Series (5 part series — PART 5)
Blockchain technology and its related applications have achieved a massive growth over the last few years. It has grown from a level of being ignored to become a buzzword in the innovation space: with new cases of Blockchain uses emerging every day.
The gateway between these innovations and you, as the creator or the consumer, is the law. For instance, if an innovator wants to profit from his/her innovations, he/she will need the help of the law, specifically intellectual property law.
So, one question remains. How will Blockchain disrupt the intellectual property (IP) industry? Let’s delve in and explore:
1. IP Registry services
The problem with conventional regulatory authorities is that their process of verifying and approving inventions is slow. Manual review hinders quick access to innovations in the market. Also, since laws vary from one country to the other, an invention that will take some days to verify in one country might take months to verify in another country.
Blockchain’s distributed ledger will solve this issue by enabling decentralized storage of data, reducing verification and approval time rate; consequently open the market to quick access to innovations. In addition, the elimination of third-party reliance will ensure total safety of information, therefore make records more trustworthy.
2. Curbing Counterfeits
Sadly, the counterfeit business is profiting a lot from other people’s inventions. And this is so discouraging to those who spend months if not years to come up with such great ideas. Even though laws have been put in place to combat this menace the progress has been minimal. But is all hope lost for innovators?
The Blockchain technology promises to hold IP rights that will allow for provenance authentication. Blockchain’s distributed ledger will be able to record details of the place, and time the products were made, the manufacturing process and how the raw material was sourced. An example of a project aiming to combat counterfeit is VeChain Thor.
VeChain Thor offers you, as a user, a platform that can verify if all the products are genuine or not by tagging each product with a RFID tag. Its decentralized nature makes it impossible to access the information and alter a product’s label. It also offers an avenue where everyone along the supply chain can track and verify a product to ensure it is genuine.
Another platform that aims to solve the counterfeit menace is Waltonchain. Waltoinchain, by using RFID tags that are scanned and stored on blockchain platform will assist to monitor and track all items with RFID tags in the market. The tags will distinguish between counterfeit products and genuine products.
3. Evidence of Creatorship
Another concern with the traditional model is that IP rights that cannot be registered. You see, if it cannot be registered, proving in court its infringement becomes hard without proof. As an artist, it is demoralizing when you put effort and time in your work only to wake up and find people accessing it freely. The internet has made downloading any artwork, from books to music, so easy but at the cost of the creator.
Blockchain will offer a solution by being able to store information about your artwork in its distributed ledger. By creating a time stamp record of when the work was uploaded and the details of the creator, here Blockchain will own proof of ownership of the creator. This technology will not only help artists benefit from their work but also reduce the rate of piracy in the market. An example of a platform working to solve this situation is KODAKOne.
KODAKOne is a blockchain-based platform owned by KODAK. It is a platform that will offer photographers an avenue where they will be able to license and register their work. Photographers will not only enjoy the security it offers their work but also the fast transaction rates it offers through its KODAKCoin.
4. Smart Contracts
Intermediaries have always been a pain to many artists by always taking the lions share from their work. Simply by serving as outsourcing platforms, intermediaries believe they do the bulk of the work, so they deserve more. As such, artists continue to earn peanuts from their work.
Smart contracts offered on Blockchain platforms eliminate the need for intermediaries. Smart contracts will offer you, as an artist, an avenue of dictating terms for your work directly with your customers. As an artist, you will be able to manage your sales through smart contract.
A good example here is Agrello — a company based in Estonia that is creating an application for legally binding smart contracts. The smart contracts will be produced with the help of artificial intelligence and displayed in a public Blockchain.
5. IP Focused Blockchain Projects
Presently there exist various trademark registration authorities that are spread across the world. Each registration authority has its register that has to be consulted for verification each time a trademark requires approval. It is not only time consuming but also very expensive.
Blockchain will offer an avenue that connects the registers across the world through its distributed ledger. Information about IP will be recorded in the Blockchain database which may include the date of registration, publication, ownership and first use. Blockchain will make this information readily available anywhere in the world, therefore, cutting down the verification and approval rate and the cost incurred.
An example of a company working to solve this problem is IPChain- a Blockchain based technology that aims to offer protection of intellectual property. The company offers a new way of securing proof of your work, and its easy accessibility ensures that you can prove infringement from anywhere in the world.
Final Word
It is evident, that the creative world will benefit a lot from Blockchain technology. Blockchain offers an avenue where there will be fewer disputes about ownership. Information published on the public Blockchain ledger will make proving authorship a quick and easy thing. Artists will rip maximum benefits from their work. Last but not least, Blockchain offers top-notch security for data through its distributed ledgers that negates the presence of a single point of vulnerability.
What is your opinion on the use of Blockchain to enforce IP rights? Could you consider it as a lifetime solution for content creators?
Blockchain Use Case Series (5 part series — PART 1): How Blockchain is Revolutionizing Finance
Blockchain Use Case Series (5 part series — PART 2): How Blockchain Is Changing The Gambling Industry
Blockchain Use Case Series (5 part series — PART 3): How Blockchain Is Completely Disrupting The Gaming Industry
Blockchain Use Case Series (5 part series — PART 4): How Blockchain will Disrupt Digital Identity
