Patent market platform IPwe has partnered with IBM to launch non-fungible token (NFT) patents. The patent records will be stored using IBM’s blockchain technology.
NFTs are already widely used for digital content to enhance their value. Lately, it seems that new digital markets based on NFT products are emerging for sports collectibles, 3D clothing, and abstract ownership of internet content. One area that has not yet been widely explored is the potential for NFTs tied to patents. There have been numerous blockchain trials for other intellectual property (IP) rights, such as copyright.
The tokenization of intellectual property makes it easier to license, commercialize and potentially trade. We’ll come back to whether trading patents is a positive outcome. While most companies already treat patents as assets, it may make them easier to value. Additionally, having patents represented by NFTs may provide a new owner with an additional layer of trust about the transaction’s validity and enables them to prove their rightful ownership of the IP more easily. As with anything that uses blockchain, it’s still necessary to ensure that the original rights owner was also the issuer of the NFT.
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