Australian 'Bitcoin Founder' Quietly Bidding For Patent Empire (reuters.com) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Craig Wright, the Australian who claimed to be the inventor of bitcoin, is attempting to build a large patent portfolio around the digital currency and technology underpinning it, according to associates of his and documents reviewed by Reuters. Since February, Wright has filed more than 50 patent applications in Britain through Antigua-registered EITC Holdings Ltd, which a source close to the company confirmed was connected to Wright, government records show. Interviews with sources close to EITC Holdings Ltd, which has two of Wright's associates as directors, confirmed it was still working on filing patent applications and Britain's Intellectual Property Office has published another 11 patent applications filed by the company in the past week. The granting of even some of the patents would be significant for banking and other industries that are trying to exploit bitcoin technologies, as well as dozens of start-ups scurrying to build business models based around it. Patents that Wright has applied for range from a mechanism for paying securely for online content to an operating system for running an "internet of things" on blockchain. A patent schedule, one of a number of documents relating to the applications shown to Reuters by a person close to the EITC Holdings, outlines plans to apply for about 400 in total.
Mmmmm (Score:1)
As most of this had been already publicly released how comes that they don't fall under prior art (and the fact that software patents are not enforceable in Europe)?
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They do, unless he patents something completely new that builds upon existing technoogy. Now some European patent offices have the tendency to rubber-stamp everything and have the courts sort out the prior art when somebody starts complaining, so there is actually a way he gets his patents approved and create a hurdle for small outfits. In any case, if there is indeed prior art, you can submit objections and proof of this prior art during the approval process.
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In any case, if there is indeed prior art, you can submit objections and proof of this prior art during the approval process.
...and pray you have enough money to outlast them in a long-winding court case after which none of your expenses will be reimbursed if you win.
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I think you're confusing approval process with litigation process. If you submit prior after the patent has been awarded, sure...
Of course, I'm not all that familiar with the approval process. So perhaps I'm missing something.
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money, MONEY, I don need no stinkin monies, I make my own. So if those are patents on crypto currency and crypto currency is so great, then surely you must be able to pay those patents fees with your crypto currency or are they saying crypto currency is shite and they want to get paid with real money, so what does that make crypto currency and those patents worth - nothing?!?
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If he was the original inventor, some countries allow for delayed (patent pending) filing. You can then use that country's patent as a bridge to other countries that have IP treaties and launch a full scale attack on everything bitcoin.
Re:Mmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
... which is why Craig went on the whole trying-to-claim-he's-Satoshi spree which was immediately proven to be a fraud. One of the things he did was to insert current info into old posts, and backdating things, to make it appear he's been "in" Bitcoin longer than he has.
He's hoping there's enough doubt at the patent office to grant him the patents, with those dates as precedence.
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Ehhhh you might want to re-examine the assumptions
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2015... [ipwatchdog.com]
Premium Channel Promotion System and Method is one of the patents in here
Take a look at that and ask yourself if TV Guide didn't have prior art 60+ years ago.
Re: Mmmmm (Score:1)
Software patents may not be enforceable in Europe *now*, but TTIP will take care of that. And watch out for retroactivity... It's going to be a riot! :)
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This brings up an interesting question: would the actual Satoshi Nakamoto (whether or not that's the actual Craig Wright) have made more money by mining a lot of early bitcoin for cheap and sitting on a hoard until it takes off, as apparently was done, or would he (or she) make more money by "coming out" to patent bitcoin technology in advance before it became "prior art" (as it is today) and simply let others mine the initial cheap bitcoin? In other words, would the early patents have been worth more than
no kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to lure out the real Satoshi, are we?
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The only way this guy is bold enough to try this shit is if he *knows* Satoshi is dead
Nick Szabo is dead?
The worst thing is... (Score:1)
... these will probably be granted and fiercely defended. People M-DEL Leeches who attempt to profit from the hard work of a community make my blood boil.
I am of course assuming he has no legitimate claim to them given he declined to give evidence that he is in fact Satoshi Nakamoto.
The way to test. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real satoshi has a mathematically incontrovertible signature he can use to sign and publish messages to the world, so there is no need to lure that person out. The original also, intentionally, released and spread his paper and code, and distributed efforts throughout a community for both development and adoption, which would indicate any claims of infringement to copyright (the validly applicable area of law, unlike patents, which would cover inventions in the computing machine or some other hardware, but not mere instructions).
More interesting is what happens if Wright gets legally recognized: I say freeze his accounts and assets, and then demand that he move sufficient bitcoin to cover the back-dues in tax and penalties. If he can't, or the money comes from elsewhere (rather than Satoshi moving his chunk of the blockchain and converting into cash), then we know he is either a psychopathic, entrepeneurial conman, or the face of a government operation to try to engineer its way into owning and controlling bitcoin via legal grants and decree.
Welcome to the real world kids (Score:2)
If you don't patent your invention then someone else eventually will. You can whine and bitch all night long about how unfair it is, it won't change anything. Life is unfair. The real satoshi could easily have patented it and given the patent to the community. He chose not to. Oh well, too bad.
Re:Welcome to the real world kids (Score:4, Insightful)
He chose to publish instead. You can't patent something you've already publicly described. And no one else can either.
This assumes the patent office is a rational actor following the law of course.
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there's no need to be "rational" when you are the one writing, implementing, or enforcing the laws; in fact it would be irrational to be "rational". why play the rigged game, when you can play the rigging the game other people are playing game?
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Not true, at least in the USA. It looks like the rules have gotten more complicated, but there are at least some ways in which you can publicly describe it, and still patent it within a year. See http://www.flhlaw.com/Not-YOur... [flhlaw.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Say goodbye to HTTP and HTML then! Since they weren't patented someone will surely patent them and shut down the web!
It was the fact theses technologies were not prohibitively encumbered by copyright and patents that enabled their broad adoption.
Many Gopher daemons required expensive commercial licensing fees and sent many requests for payment of license to users of the Gopher software, often when they were being used for personal or hobby use. This is why permissive licenses and the GPL expressly permit
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It sure looks like someone is making a lot of money from creating bitcoin, and it's shameful. Bitcoin was developed as a tool to allow criminals to easy pay for contraband or illegal services without being tracked by law enforcement.
Are you sure about that? In my more paranoid moments I wonder if the whole Bitcoin ecosystem was created as a honeypot by a three letter agency. Sure, if you're scrupulous about it you can preserve your anonymity - but it only takes one slip.
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Are you trolling? Bitcoin does not actually provide any anonymity and every single transaction is tracked for all time. Amazon accept bitcoins, as does Paypal and many banks.
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Re:Shameful (Score:4, Interesting)
It's clear you like to make up things and then be sad and guilt others about these fictions.
Bitcoin isn't a tool, it's a currency.
It wasn't developed to allow criminals to pay. It was developed to create a decentralized currency.
It has nothing to do with law enforcement tracking avoidance -- the blockchain is public. The users are not but can be backtraced.
Legitimate businesses (like Dell) do accept Bitcoin but that's a chicken/egg argument and doesn't add nor detract from BCs legitimacy.
Rogue currency - currencies aren't rogue. Rogue means "dishonest or unprincipled". Currencies don't have either. You're just trying to paint it in your colors.
It's sad and genuinely shameful to read your hate piece on BC. Sorry you know nothing about it.
I think BC is speculative crap but at least I don't make up falsehoods like your stuff above to get there.
E
Fucking misleading descriptions! (Score:1)
He didn't claim to be the inventor of BitCon, he was CLAIMED TO BE the inventor of BitCon. Fuck BitCon and fuck that guy, but at least fucking try to be objective in the descriptions.
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But why oh why is he now taking this even further ?
Rap (Score:2)
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Dear anonymous, please to fix (Score:1)
Kthxbai
400? (Score:2)
400 patents for one idea? What the fuck! I think Bitcoin could probably be fully explained in less than 1,600 words, if well thought out. That's a patent for every four words.
In that case (Score:1)
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Andrew O'Hagan has lengthy piece on Wright (Score:2)
Published at London Review of Books, it's a very interesting read [lrb.co.uk] (not finished it myself yet).
I'm not personally involved in Bitcoin in any way what-so-ever, but I stayed up way, way too late last night reading the LRB article.
O'Hagan also has one about Julian Assange, who I also have not one bit of interest it, that I couldn't stop reading.