What is “blockchain technology”?
Protecting blockchain innovations
Where can “blockchain patent publications” be found?
Examination of blockchain patent applications
Comment
The number of inventions involving blockchain is increasing. This article outlines how to protect blockchain innovations in the European Union.
What is “blockchain technology”?
To understand what blockchain is, it is important to consider the inception of bitcoin. While the two terms are no longer synonymous, bitcoin was the first crypto asset ever invented and constitutes the birth of the concept of blockchain.
A bitcoin blockchain is works as follows:
- person A wishes to send person B some bitcoin;
- the transaction is represented online as a block;
- the block is broadcast to every node in the network with a complex mathematical problem to crack;
- miners race to work out the answer to the mathematical problem (a cryptographic puzzle);
- the first party (miner) to crack the problem broadcasts the answer to the network that validates the transaction;
- the valid transaction is added to the chain and broadcasted to all nodes;…
