Topic: OpenNFC - Project to standardise Bitcoin + NFC + Open Patents (Read 2490 times)

Thanks for the reply.

It seems like you are well counseled, and admittedly I don't know much about Patents or Patent law. It makes since that you are afraid someone else is planning on filing a patent on the same technology themselves. Would posting your method on the forums, your website, or blog not count as public notice so someone could not patent it?? I'm not going to act like I know more than a patent lawyer, those were just my initial thoughts about the patent.

Also I am afraid that if more people start trying to patent certain technologies involved with Bitcoin, then more and more people will think it's a good idea. In 5 years from now there could be 1000s of patents filed related to Bitcoin making it harder to work with it. Bitcoin is still so new.. the core technologies and services are still being improved from a primitive state. Everything that is built and being developed today will be built upon in the years to come. I see millions of patents getting in the way of that one way or another. Then again, maybe I am just that naive kid you mentioned you used to be (sincerely.) I'm not a kid... I am 26, but I admit I still have a lot to learn about everything.

Can you release details if you've patented all PUF technologies? There are different kinds as I'm sure you know, although RFID is obviously the best choice. Other PUF technologies might still be available to others? Another thing about this is that myself and others have to wait a year to add any NFC technology to our coins the way we would like. I could seriously have this made and released to the public in a matter of months... (I have talked to a few very smart people about this since seeing Zach's blog post.) I suppose a NFC tag containing the coin's address or other information about the coin wouldn't infringe on the patent? I might still do something like that for fun... it would be neat to have an app that was able to scan the address and easily look up the coin's value and give other basic info even if it didn't have PUF capabilities.

You seem quite level headed from your posts and meeting you in San Jose. I trust you'll do the right thing as far as helping out the little guy and only charging high royalties for corporations. I will post ideas of how I think we could improve upon Zach's proposed standard for NFC Bitcoin syntax soon. I want to think it over a little more, but initially I can see that it would be neat to add more information. Such as fields for manufacturer's websites, a link to instructions of how to redeem the value on the coin, product description... There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to NFC! All fields should be made optional, but there should be a standard variable name for every idea we can think of that we would ever want to put on a NFC tag of a physical Bitcoin. I can imagine all the different Physical Bitcoins that work seamlessly with different apps.. it will be pretty neat!

I decided to reply to a couple specific things quickly:


"You are positive that none of these companies have published how their systems work to the public and/or filed patents on them?"

No, I am not positive. However a big part of the patent system is to take something someone one else has already done, improve it a little and patent the improvement.

"Secondly, I would like to develop hardware and software doing something along the lines of what it appears your patent is for. Ever since I read Zach’s blog and was introduced to the idea, I just can’t see a better way of making a physical Bitcoin. However, since I am not able to locate the patent, how am I supposed to know what I can or cannot do? I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars in development costs if the end product is patented and I can’t use it anyways."

This is a pretty big part of patenting, a debatable aspect of Provisional Patents, and it's not a legal practice in all countries specifically because of this.

That said, provisional patents only give you 12 months to the application deadline, so in the grand scheme of things, (considering how long it takes to develop a product) it's not an insurmountable length of time.

"Firstly, I would like to make sure that your patent doesn’t regurgitate information that was published to the public domain prior to your application and that no other patents already exist that would encompass your method."

The patent examiners will be similarly critical- and it will be years before we know the outcome.

But I think this discussion should be about more then just me pursing a patent and rather about crafting a relationship for bitcoin and patent holders in general. I think we have a real chance to create an organisation that if not by any legal force, could at least force Bitcoin patent holders by sheer public sentiment to agree to fair licensing agreements. IE: some sort of stamp or mark showing they are members of the OpenBitcoinPatent group, etc.....

This is just a quick response- my patent application is a Provisional Application, which means to the best of my knowledge it's not searchable. The only reason I have filled as a provisional is based on advice of my patent lawyer, once the patent itself is published however, It will become searchable. I've spoken with Cassacius about the patent and he really strongly disagrees with me pursing it. I understand his disagreement and as per his advice reached out to the foundation, but as I mentioned- no response from them. There are others publicly pursuing NFC+Bitcoin tech related patents (and assume more non-publicly) and I have been counselled that basically as a small entrepreneur, you don't really have any choice not to pursue one. If it's patentable- someone will patent it, and now that we are first to file system, you need to try and file first. I've been burned first hand by this when I was younger- I wrote for a popular photography magazine a column showing people how to build neat photography gadgets out of common materials. After publishing one particularly well received article, someone went out and patented exactly what I had written up, filing a good deal of time after my article was printed, and went on to manufacture and sell, and profit from this rather popular device. I didn't have enough money at the time to fight it, but I learned quite a deal from the experience when talking with lawyers. It was naive of me then to think that just because I was giving the information away for free that I was somehow protected from someone else patenting it.


" I respect you Dennison and understand where you are coming from when filing this patent, but I feel that I would be doing a disservice to all future Bitcoiners if I didn’t try to fight it. I am guessing your patent was filed before this method was published to public domain on February 8, 2014 by Zach (http://www.indolering.com/puf-bitcoin#)?"

Yes, my filing date is before Feb 8th, prior to this article.
 
"I do not personally think that the words Bitcoin and Patent should be used in the same sentence."

I have come to agree with you to a certain degree, but we can't ignore that getting a judge to agree is a whole different ball game. I might be a photographer turned entrepreneur working on a small-time scale, but we shouldn't delude ourselves here that there aren't multinational corporations thinking about what aspects of the technology they can patent as well. In general I think the current system lends itself to a 'patent first ask questions later' situation.

I'm sure we can agree that people are going to try and patent aspects of bitcoin, it's already happening and by much bigger entities then myself. I could potentially walk away from my application: sure. But that doesn't mean Citibank (for example) is going to walk away from their application as well. The difference being that at least I'm here saying, "Hey, how do we do this fairly?".

Proposal:

A 'fair use' agreement for people inclined to be 'fair use patentors':

Individuals/companies pursing patents related to bitcoin can promise to offer a free license for non-commercial uses, and commercial uses below some certain threshold (for example, below a quarter million dollars in sales or something like that) and for all commercial uses above some threshold a portion of the licensing fees can be given to some sort of "Bitcoin Patent Foundation" that would use the money to disperse grants supporting Open Source Bitcoin innovation.

That would allow an individual that goes through the expensive and time consuming process for obtaining a patent to recover their investment, while simultaneously not retarding innovation AND supporting Open Source Development.

EDIT: (edited for clarity, it's late where I am, probably lots of typos)

Hi Dennison,

First of all let me thank you for starting this discussion. Let me apologize in advance, I will be fairly long winded as I feel there are many topics to go over. I propose starting a separate thread for patent related issues in the Legal subforum. I see this thread being quite cluttered with both topics, also I would hate some of our personal feelings towards patents having some sort of effect on the development of a Bitcoin NFC standard so that all products, software, and mobile apps work seamlessly. I expect a few other physical cryptocoin guys will show up ITT. The more the merrier... I think together we can find a solution for both issues and give physical Bitcoins a brighter future. As someone interested in the physical cryptocoin space, the topic of NFC integration into physical cryptocoin products really interests me. I find it quite fitting that Bitcoin be integrated with such a new exciting technology as NFC, as they are both new and exciting technologies in and of themselves.

I have spent many hours of my free time over the past year or so brainstorming, researching, and experimenting with different ways to make physical cryptocoins more counterfeit and tamper resistant. Lately, I have mainly focused on increasing tamper evident properties through chemistry-based experiments, specifically to thwart the hypodermic needle attack. Although I have had some successes with certain experiments, almost all of the things I have tried have not worked at all. It is certainly a trial and error process, and I'm just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. I feel like I am very close to a solution, in fact I feel like I have already developed a chemistry-based solution for the attack, but I need to do more experiments to be certain. In fact, I just had my first break through after many failed experiments yesterday, so I am quite excited to see what will come of that!

I'm getting off track with the second paragraph, but I know it will probably interest a few people that will be reading this thread and it brings me to my next point... it is REALLY hard (maybe impossible) to increase the tamper evident and counterfeit resistant qualities of physical cryptocoins beyond how they exist today (with a private key hidden underneath a tamper evident hologram) without using new technologies or centralizing the coins themselves. Obviously this is Bitcoinland, and everyone knows centralization can only lead to bad things, so that leaves us with using new technologies to improve upon them. Most (if not all) manufacturers of physical cryptocoins are going to need to develop new ways of securing their products, or they will be left behind by other vendors and see their sales slow to a trickle. Thus, patents covering new technologies (in this case RFID/PUF) and physical Bitcoins could possibly hamper the industry as it is today. I admit if there was anyone holding a patent such as this, I would want it to be you Dennison, as you have been around for a while and likely have Bitcoin's best interest at heart. In the end, I still can't help but feeling this will not be a good thing for Bitcoin. I do not personally think that the words Bitcoin and Patent should be used in the same sentence.

I urge anyone that has already filed a patent application regarding Bitcoin NFC technology to come forward and provide us with that application. In your case Dennison, I have not been able to locate your application and this is troubling for me for two reasons. Firstly, I would like to make sure that your patent doesn’t regurgitate information that was published to the public domain prior to your application and that no other patents already exist that would encompass your method. I respect you Dennison and understand where you are coming from when filing this patent, but I feel that I would be doing a disservice to all future Bitcoiners if I didn’t try to fight it. I am guessing your patent was filed before this method was published to public domain on February 8, 2014 by Zach (http://www.indolering.com/puf-bitcoin#)? Even if your patent was indeed filed before then, I am not certain that the patent will be considered valid considering there have been many NFC/PUF related technologies developed and used for a while now. Although I am just learning about it, PUF technology has been in use since the 90s, and is currently used by every tap-to-pay solution that exists along with everyday credit cards. You are positive that none of these companies have published how their systems work to the public and/or filed patents on them? I will be looking into this. Secondly, I would like to develop hardware and software doing something along the lines of what it appears your patent is for. Ever since I read Zach’s blog and was introduced to the idea, I just can’t see a better way of making a physical Bitcoin. However, since I am not able to locate the patent, how am I supposed to know what I can or cannot do? I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars in development costs if the end product is patented and I can’t use it anyways.

Please don’t take any of this personally. I want what’s best for Bitcoin, and I am willing to put that in front of both your best interests and my own. I feel like I might be burning a bridge here by saying all of this… after all, if this patent is approved then I will likely need to work closely with you if I want to stay in the physical cryptocoin space. I just don’t want any hard feelings lingering over the topics I have brought up in this post. Even though I may not agree with it, I do not hold any hard feeling towards you for filing the patent, and I hope you can award me the same courtesy for voicing my opinion against it. I would also like to reiterate that if this patent is inevitable, I would rather you be the owner than .

As far as establishing a standard for NFC use with Bitcoin, I think this is a fabulous idea. I have already passed the maximum amount of time I can spend pounding on a keyboard for now, but I have a few ideas to toss around. I feel like Zach did a good job of establishing a framework for NFC formatting. I’m not sure if you have seen this, but it is located here: https://github.com/namecoin/wiki/wiki/puf

I’m looking forward to the future of physical Bitcoins, it seems like they will be here before we know it. If we can all work together and create a standard, then it will be neat to see all the products that come out of this and how they work seamlessly with each other’s apps and whatnot… it will be a really cool thing to see come to fruition. I hope I can be of some help ITT other than providing a wall of opinion!  

Like many people on the forums, I am building a project around NFC technology and Bitcoin. Like several other companies I am aware of- I have also pursued patent protection to cover various details of what I'm working on.

My Project: www.aeternum.in

I've been persuaded though, that this might not be the best way to go about things and I thought it would be a good idea to maybe get various NFC Bitcoin developers under one organisation to standardise our practices and to share IP as well as develop some sort of fair use agreement for Bitcoin related patents. I know many in the forum are staunch anti-Patent advocates, the reality is that this forum carries no legal weight in the real world and it's an issue we need to address.

I'm looking to see who would be interested in starting a small organisation to address two issues (and perhaps they should be separate )

1: Standardisation of NFC practices for working with Bitcoin. There is no need for a chaotic world of non-interoperable technologies and devices.

2: Creation of a patent advisory board that can craft some sort of fair-use stance for Bitcoin related Patents. As patents are an expensive thing to obtain, and due to the nature of First-to-File, patent trolls, etc.. essentially obligates any small innovator to try and pursue a patent to legally cover their projects, I had been thinking about some sort of community agreed licensing scheme where by small entities get cheap or free access to bitcoin related patents, but large organisations (Read: CitiBank, Microsoft, Google) have to purchase licenses. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure how to go about this, and despite reaching out to the Bitcoin Foundation Legal department a number of times I've gotten zero response. (I am even an original Foundation Donator and haven't heard a peep back)

So, it's a rough idea, but I think both ideas are quickly becoming very relevant. I've been in private conversation with a number of individuals who have expressed interest in discussion both points, and I wanted to open it up to the community at large to start a discussion on the subject.