The proliferation of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance (DeFi) purposes lately has been accompanied by a surge in patent filings worldwide by blockchain tech builders. And, regardless of some early reluctance of nationwide patent places of work to acknowledge the patentability of those rising applied sciences, many nationwide patent legislation and patent utility examination laws have been revised lately to acknowledge their patentability. This has resulted in hundreds of patents being granted worldwide for blockchain, crypto, and DeFi innovations.
A blockchain was created as a transaction ledger for the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Traditionally, the patent legal guidelines in most international locations have deemed fintech innovations as patent ineligible enterprise strategies for missing enough technical options and being merely psychological processes, mathematical formulation, or strategies for organizing human exercise. Nevertheless, a blockchain is inherently a technological system. It’s a distributed ledger that consists of a rising checklist of digital information which might be securely linked collectively utilizing cryptography and managed by a peer-to-peer pc community.
As the recognition of blockchain expertise has grown and its utility has expanded from the fintech sector to different industries, corresponding to healthcare, transportation, large knowledge, cybersecurity, and client electronics patent utility filings for blockchain-based innovations skyrocketed worldwide. Recognizing the financial significance of blockchain expertise and its inherent technical nature, many nationwide patent places of work have additionally revised their patent legal guidelines and examination laws to ease the eligible material threshold for blockchain innovations.
The next is a survey of nationwide patent legal guidelines and laws pertaining to the examination of blockchain, crypto, and DeFi applied sciences in the most well-liked patent submitting jurisdictions:
United States
America has traditionally been one of the vital patent pleasant international locations on the planet. Not surprisingly, the earliest patents for blockchain innovations had been granted within the US because of the strict interpretation of patent eligible material outlined in 35 USC 101 with respect to software program and enterprise strategies, by which blockchain purposes are usually categorised, and the confusion attributable to a number of totally different exams for patent eligibility promulgated by courts, prosecution of blockchain purposes on the US Patent Workplace turned fairly difficult.
Recognizing these issues, the Patent Workplace revealed the 2019 Revised Patent Topic Matter Eligibility Steerage (right here is our evaluation of the steerage), which supplied a structured framework for evaluating software program and enterprise strategies. The steerage successfully eased the scrutiny with which blockchain-related purposes had been handled with and supplied readability as to patent eligibility standards for crypto, DeFi, and fintech innovations. Presently, there are almost 30,000 patent purposes and over 10,000 patents within the US for blockchain-based innovations.
China
As a consequence of speedy progress of crypto mining farms, e-commerce enterprise, and fintech start-ups in China, the variety of patent purposes for blockchain, crypto, and DeFi innovations has exploded lately. A few of China’s largest e-commerce and Web firms, corresponding to Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, lead the world with hundreds of granted blockchain patents.
Recognizing the significance of blockchain and fintech applied sciences to its financial system, the Chinese language authorities referred to as for companies to speed up growth of blockchain applied sciences in 2019. Later that yr, the Nationwide Mental Property Administration (NIPA) in China additional revised its patent examination tips to incorporate examples of blockchain strategies – additional easing the examination course of for blockchain expertise candidates. Presently, there are almost 35,000 purposes and about 9,000 patents in China for blockchain, crypto, and DeFi innovations.
Europe
The European Union has historically been more difficult than the US and China in its remedy of business-related innovations. The European Patent Workplace (EPO), based on tips in part G-VII, 5, deems an utility patentable if its claims outline a technical resolution to a technical drawback, and make non-obvious technical contributions over the prior artwork. The EPO acknowledges {that a} blockchain is a multi-disciplinary expertise and that patent purposes could embrace declare options associated to networks, computing, and communications – usually deemed “technical” – and declare options associated to arithmetic and enterprise strategies – usually deemed “non-technical.” Accordingly, to enhance possibilities of acquiring a patent in Europe, purposes for blockchain, crypto, or DeFi options ought to reduce their deal with non-technical options and emphasize technical points of the invention. So far, roughly 2000 European purposes have been filed for blockchain applied sciences, and about 500 patents have been granted.
Japan
Whereas enterprise strategies in Europe are usually not given a lot favor, the Japanese Patent Workplace (JPO) is comparatively lenient for these kinds of purposes. Regardless of the Japanese Patent Act following an identical framework because the EPO tips when it comes to distinguishing technical and non-technical options, the Japanese allowance charge for business-related innovations, which umbrella blockchain-related innovations, is over 50%. This doesn’t imply that any blockchain-related utility is routinely patent eligible in Japan. For instance, the information inside a blockchain is unpatentable. Nevertheless, a tool, a way, and/or a program for implementing a course of utilizing blockchain/crypto is mostly thought of patent eligible by the JPO. So far, there are roughly 1700 patents in Japan for blockchain, crypto, and DeFi innovations.
South Korea
Just like Japan and China, South Korean patent legal guidelines view blockchain-based expertise fairly favorably. In accordance with Article 29(1), Article 29(1)ii, and Article 29(2) of the Korean Patent Act, each blockchain core expertise and utility expertise are patentable. Core expertise covers the transmissions or transactions of information involving the usage of blockchain/crypto and utility expertise covers the usage of blockchain networks within the context of finance, safety, cryptocurrencies, and many others. As a result of each points of blockchain expertise are deemed patent eligible, South Korea is mostly a positive nation for blockchain, crypto, and DeFi patent purposes. It’s thus not stunning that the variety of patent filings in South Korea has grown exponentially from a number of dozen blockchain-related patent purposes in 2015 to almost 1500 purposes in 2019.
Blockchain, crypto, and DeFi applied sciences present ample alternative for innovation as evidenced by hundreds of patent purposes filed worldwide for these cutting-edge applied sciences. The quickly rising variety of patents issued for these applied sciences in the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and even Europe point out that almost all of patent submitting jurisdictions look favorably on the patentability of blockchain-based applied sciences. Nevertheless, to maximise the possibilities of acquiring a patent for these applied sciences, inventors and their patent attorneys ought to concentrate on totally different patent eligibility necessities and requirements of assorted nationwide patent places of work and make use of appropriate patent utility drafting and prosecution methods.
