People are queuing to access the EPOPIC conference on patent information in Brussels.
Christophe Saam acted as a chairman of the discussion round on « use of blockchain technology for intellectual property », and replied to the many hopes but also fears and doubts that this very hyped technology creates.
Following possible use cases of the technology have been discussed:
- Timestamping documents,
- Securing NDAs,
- Improving royalties collection with smart contracts,
- Exchanging assignment documents
- Exchanging priority documents
- Payment of fees to the patent offices
- IP financing
- Collaboration projetcs; Financing IP
- Communication between applicant and his counsel
Roughly one third of the attendants considered to use blockchain technology within the next 3-5 years in order to timestamp IP related documents (trade secrets, copyrighted work, etc).
