Blockchain and Intellectual Property

Abstract

Undeniably one of the most anticipated and potentially revolutionary technologies since the invention of the internet, blockchain promises to usher in a new era of how we do business and handle information. Although a cryptographically secured chain of digital files was described in work* dated as early as 1991, the invention of blockchain in its current, most popular form, as a distributed ledger for transactions on a network, is credited to the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor(s) of Bitcoin, in 2008. Cryptography has been around for centuries, but the cryptocurrency & blockchain community as a whole largely considers Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin as the first blockchain. Although initially intended as the supporting technology behind a digital form of money, blockchain is beginning to show it’s potential to expand to numerous applications with real world use-cases in preexisting industries.