Secure your idea for 12 months and convert to international patent under PCT within 12 months
Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides filing mechanism for global protection of innovative products and services.
Innovative blockchain applications require patent protection and cryptocurrency patents fall in this category covering FinTech Innovations. Over 10,000 years ago, humans began wisdom to use shells to trade for supplies. Shells eventually turned into money. Now, with the growth of the internet, the digital currency has begun to bypass and is steadily replacing traditional currency. Unparalleled changes in payment strategies are coming about as a consequence.
The sudden surfacing of cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, Ethereum, and LiteCoin has forced the financial world to meet these changes head-on and to consider complete changes. Cryptocurrencies are ready to develop unhampered by the traditional financial system because they are backed by a key technology – the blockchain. In its fundamental form, it is an open ledger of information that can be used to store and track transactions, and which is exchanged and verified on a peer-to-peer network.
The foremost revelation of cryptocurrency-related patents appeared around 2012, as per USPTO records. During the 2012-2015 period, in the U.S. alone, establishments had had to congregate a minimum of eighty-three patent applications that contained words like “cryptocurrency” and “blockchain” in their forms. As a result, that number has risen even further since 2017 was a very active year for blockchain and cryptocurrency patent filings. The number of major patent applications appears to be on the rise throughout the primary months of 2018.
American Express has developed a payment system to improve the speed and functionality of the existing card payment ecosystem. The present case also explores the issues the card payments industry currently faces and explores how Blockchain could help to overcome those hurdles. Furthermore, the case-study also compares the existing payment ecosystem and the new ubiquitous payment system.
In addition, Mastercard is also a part of the enterprise Etherum Alliance that supports the implementation of blockchain in various applications. Visa has also realized the strength of this disruptive technology and has created a B2B Connect payment platform to improve the types of cross border payment options.
The patent filed by Amex details a concept for offering customer-specific types of rewards (including points, a virtual currency or specific items tied to a product). The filing point towards the monetary giant that would make these offers by accumulating personalized data about the customer, such as their significant spending patterns.
The patent mentions the tech as one resource for hoarding and revising information among a number of probable approaches, detailing the blockchain structure that may include a dispersed database that maintains a growing list of data records. The blockchain may offer enhanced security because each block may hold individual transactions and the results of any blockchain executables. Each block may hold a timestamp and a link to a preceding block.
Amex is presently a member of the Hyperledger Blockchain Group and, when it joined in January, the corporation suggested that it would look to blockchain as a way to potentially rework its existing services.
There is a tectonic shift underway in the B2B middle-market payments landscape, with increasing numbers of service providers offering specialized products and services to address buyer/seller pain points. Traditional financial institutions may be particularly vulnerable to disruptive competition that they haven’t experienced in their core banking and lending services. Barriers to entry have largely been eroded by a combination of technology and disruptive business models that are making it easier for smaller players to do what only the larger banks were able to previously.
Drafting and searching blockchain patent applications require in-depth expertise in patent law. Also, the blockchain patent lawyer plays crucial role in creating a patent portfolio covering all possible patent assets even before the company starts launching the products in market. The patent team performs regular patent due diligence including checks for compliance depending on the nature of the business. From the perspective of patent ownership, establishing proper title of innovations from the beginning is important to ensure smooth selling / licensing / assignment of patent rights.
Advocate Rahul Dev is a Patent Attorney & International Business Lawyer practicing Technology, Intellectual Property & Corporate Laws. He is reachable at rd (at) patentbusinesslawyer (dot) com & @rdpatentlawyer on Twitter.
Quoted in and contributed to 50+ national & international publications (Bloomberg, FirstPost, SwissInfo, Outlook Money, Yahoo News, Times of India, Economic Times, Business Standard, Quartz, Global Legal Post, International Bar Association, LawAsia, BioSpectrum Asia, Digital News Asia, e27, Leaders Speak, Entrepreneur India, VCCircle, AutoTech).
Regularly invited to speak at international & national platforms (conferences, TV channels, seminars, corporate trainings, government workshops) on technology, patents, business strategy, legal developments, leadership & management.
