IP As Non-Fungible Tokens: Preserving Ownership and Identifying Related Challenges

Abstract

Today, patent law has a broad impact on the economy and society. During this time of technological innovation and social change, discussions and reviews of the patent system constitute a healthy part of any innovation policy. The patent system is the primary mechanism for extending intellectual property rights to new technologies. The current process of patenting is costly, time-consuming and restricted to geo- graphical locations. These issues are thus not only limiting the speed of innovation and creativity but also pave the way for fraud and copyright violations. The current state of the global intellectual property landscape is marked by a disorganized mix of national patent systems, which hinders the efficient and cost-effective resolution of patent-related issues on a global scale. One major difficulty of a national patent grant is that it is enforceable only within the granting territorial nation. Without an international treaty, a nation is powerless to enforce patents beyond its national bor- ders. Additionally, the process of patent registration makes them available for theft by industry rivals during the patenting process as there is no mechanism to timely prove the ownership of an idea in conception stages. Blockchain technology is al- ready being used for the protection of intellectual contributions and copyrights. The ownership of digital assets can be effectively proven by using blockchain-based Non- Fungible Tokens (NFTs). This paper thus presents a proof of concept (PoC) for the use of NFTs to protect/prove ownership of intellectual property such as novel ideas or unique designs in any form including audio, video, text or image. We believe that such a solution will prevent counterfeiting and fraud concerning intellectual property.