We anticipate there to be a lot more in the future.
“We see the writing on the wall, and we love and depend on open source. So we’re sending a signal to others in the industry that they should consider joining, too.”
The actual litigation threats we’ve seen have been very small in number so far but every single one has left an outsized impact on the developer community
Sills said along with joining organisations like OIN and COPA, one of the best defenses against patent litigation is “if they threaten you over a specific library, keep open dialogue with other companies because there’s power in numbers and often if there’s a patent troll after you, they’re also after a lot of other people.”
Public disclosure of technology is also helpful.
With Meta joining COPA, the organization has said in a recent statement delivered that it is closer to accomplishing its ultimate objective of advancing cryptocurrency innovation through partnerships among big financial organizations, tech giants, and crypto companies. Sills believes that this move is undoubtedly one step further to advancing COPA’s mission, i.e., to remove all the legal barriers so that cryptocurrency can become the backbone for transferring value anywhere globally.
The head of Meta’s licensing and transactions group, Shayne O’Reilly, will be seen representing Meta on COPA’s board of directors, making Meta the 6th voting member of COPA’s board.
The general manager of COPA, Max Sills, describes “core cryptocurrency patents” as any “technology that allows the creation, mining, storage, transmission, settlement, integrity, or security of cryptocurrencies.”
By forming an association and requiring member firms to contribute their patents to a collective patent library, COPA hopes to stimulate blockchain innovation by lowering the risk of patent litigation.
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, commended the development on Twitter stating that “this is great.” Dorsey has declared several times that the crypto market is best served when everyone’s interests are accommodated, not just those of the wealthy.
This is great https://t.co/VhwdhzaQja
— jack⚡️ (@jack) January 31, 2022
For years, Meta’s interest in the cryptocurrency market has been obvious.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has joined Jack Dorsey’s crypto alliance to allow the use of its cryptocurrency patents.
Interview Square, which last year founded the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to defend cryptocurrency technologies against patent trolls, has now joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) to further bolster its legal defenses.
Max Sills, counsel at Square and general manager at COPA, told The Register that the digital payment giant is “not anti-patent by any means. The point of a patent is to incentivize people to do really good creative work.”
“What’s actually happening in crypto is people are being creative regardless of government incentives,” he said.
“There’s a ton of really fast, really open work on cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, transmission mechanisms, and what we see is the people who are getting the patents aren’t really any of the people who are contributing, usually, the core technology.
“So the system is a little skewed.
It was established two years ago in September as an organization that encourages and supports blockchain-related innovation and growth by reducing the likelihood of Patent Litigation. According to Dorsey, the creation of an alliance by requiring the members to share their owned patents with COPA’s collective patent library is a crucial step in helping the crypto community safeguard itself against patent aggressors and trolls.
Not long after its establishment, in 2021, COPA filed a lawsuit against the Australian computer scientist widely known for his debated claim to be the inventor of Bitcoin, Craig Wright.
The general manager of COPA, Max Sills, describes “core cryptocurrency patents” as any “technology that allows the creation, mining, storage, transmission, settlement, integrity or security of cryptocurrencies.”
By forming an association and requiring member firms to contribute their patents to a collective patent library, COPA hopes to stimulate blockchain innovation by lowering the risk of patent litigation.
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, commended the development on Twitter stating that “this is great.” Dorsey has declared several times that the crypto market is best served when everyone’s interests are accommodated, not just those of the wealthy.
This is great https://t.co/VhwdhzaQja
— jack⚡️ (@jack) January 31, 2022
For years, Meta’s interest in the cryptocurrency market has been obvious.
General Manager of COPA, Max Sills, the previously mentioned statement includes any technology that allows the creation, transmission, storage, mining, security, integrity, or settlement of cryptocurrencies. It also implies that the patents owned by Meta would be freely available for anyone to utilize.
COPA includes over two dozen other major technology and crypto firms, such as Kraken (a US-based cryptocurrency exchange and bank), Uniswap (a cryptocurrency exchange that uses a decentralized network protocol), MicroStrategy (an American company providing mobile software, business intelligence, and cloud-based services), Coinbase (an American company operating a cryptocurrency exchange platform), to name a few.
Many companies and firms count themselves as members of COPA; however, according to Sills, Meta is the largest company to date based on the number of patents it owns.
What COPA wants to do is to make sure that crypto can be used by everyone.”
The people who are getting the patents aren’t really any of the people who are contributing, usually, the core technology
Now Square has joined OIN “for the same underlying reason we created COPA,” Sills told us. “Square uses and contributes to many open-source projects and open technologies, and we only see ourselves doing that more in future. So joining OIN is natural for us because it’s a commitment to the community that we’re going to be a good actor.”
The core of OIN is the agreement signed by all members that grants royalty-free access to Linux-related patents and cross-licenses Linux system patents between members.
OIN was founded in 2005 by big names including IBM, Red Hat, and SUSE, in part to respond to the threat to Linux from Microsoft and its war chest of patents at that time.
Meta is ready to allow developers in the cryptocurrency ecosystem to build using its crypto patents.
The metaverse firm could pay Diem’s investors with the $200 million raised from the sale of the intellectual property rights.
Max Sills, General manager at COPA, was quoted as saying:
Companies large and small can encourage innovation by collaborating on fundamental infrastructure. This is one step further to advancing COPA’s mission, which is to remove legal obstacles so cryptocurrency can become the backbone for transferring value anywhere in the world.
Meta has put its plans to venture into the digital payment ecosystem through stablecoin Diem to rest and joined the COPA board as a voting member.
В COPA сейчас состоит 30 компаний, занимающихся разработками в этой области.
Чем больше компаний присоединится к альянсу, тем сильнее снизится риск судебных разбирательств, связанных с разработками на основе блокчейна, считают в СОРА. Организация стремится сделать отрасль более открытой и доступной для разработчиков.
Генеральный директор COPA Макс Силлс описывает «основные патенты на криптовалюту» как любую технологию, которая позволяет создавать, добывать, рассчитывать, хранить или передавать криптовалюту.
Решение Meta присоединиться к COPA последовало сразу после официального закрытия криптовалютного проекта Diem, созданного в свое время по инициативе Facebook.
Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook and presently doing business as Meta, has recently joined the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA). The company, at present, is the latest and biggest crypto technology patent holder to join COPA, thereby expanding the pool of Intellectual Property (IP) assets that could be significantly used to safeguard the industry from litigation.
The move comes on the heels of Meta winding down its crypto project, the Diem Association.
As per various recent reports, Diem is selling its technology (IP assets) to Silvergate Bank (Based in San Diego) for $200 million to pay back the investors.
COPA is a consortium of crypto and technology companies led by Block, which is Jack Dorsey’s payments company and was formerly known as Square Inc.
