
Bank of America trying to load up on patents for the technology behind Bitcoin - hackuser
http://qz.com/578974/bank-of-america-is-trying-to-load-up-on-patents-for-the-technology-behind-bitcoin/
======
aburan28
Fuck Bank of America. $12.00 maintenance fee every month for holding my money?
$35.00 overdraft fees? </rant>

I don't understand why they are patenting this stuff, It will never hold up
and they will never sue anyone

~~~
zanny
Because 99% of patent litigation never goes to court. An entity like Bank of
America can wield an army of lawyers to sue anyone they do not like for bogus
patent infringement, and that alone will kill most competition because they do
not have the resources to even meet BoA in court for a day. Its what patents
are for in the modern economy after all - you get big, you make tons of them
that cover everything, and then you sue anyone you don't like until they
implode from spending too much time in court and not enough time innovating.

~~~
mkhalil
I always here about stuff like this going on. What do people mean when they
say stuff like "they do not have the resources to even meet BoA in court for a
day"? How is spending too much time in court taking away innovating time?

If BofA has 100 lawyers on a case, and you have one lawyer, what kind of
advantages does BofA have?

What kind of trouble can they cause that company? How does not having a lot of
lawyers make it dangerous?

Seems like in a court room only one lawyers runs the show mostly anyway.

~~~
cookiecaper
>What kind of trouble can they cause that company? How does not having a lot
of lawyers make it dangerous?

Big companies have virtually unlimited legal resources. Small companies don't
-- lawyer time is very expensive for them. Anecdotally, it seems to cost
around $5 million to mount a defense against a big public company in court.

BigCo's lawyers will file every type of complaint, motion, appeal, request,
notice, stay and postponement possible in hopes of starving you out. You have
to pay your lawyers for all the hours they spend just responding to frivolous
and/or repetitious crap, which will end up being in the man-weeks before your
first court date. You have to pay your lawyers to do all the pre-trial
research, negotiation and strategizing, which costs will end up being in the
man-months by the time you get to an actual court.

Once you finally _do_ get to court, BigCo's $1000/hr law firm will mount very
aggressive and convoluted legal arguments and attempt to mint new legal
theories, because a) it greatly increases the complexity of the case, which
means you're more likely to run out of money and concede to their client; b)
their client doesn't care how much money the law firm is going to bill them,
so the law firm is going to have a heyday and squeeze out every billable hour
possible; and c) if the new legal theory _actually works_ by some fluke of
luck, both the firm and the attorneys directly involved in the case will get a
big boost to their industry starpower. What does all this mean for the little
guy that's being brought to court? It means your defense is going to cost you
_a lot_ of money.

There's also the possibility that the court will grant an injunction against
your behavior while the issue pends, and if that affects the wrong thing, it's
possible that your entire revenue stream will be destroyed and you'll either
have to pivot on a moment's notice or just give up. Since these cases usually
take years to see all the way through, you'll be out of business for quite a
while, even if the court ultimately vindicates your position. Small companies
can't afford to go without their revenue for years at a time.

For an example, refer to the case of Uzi Nissan, an IT technician who operated
a computer repair business under his own name before Datsun rebranded to
Nissan Motor. Nissan Motor drug him through an unsuccessful 9 year, $3 million
saga to attempt to wrest the domain name from him. At the end of it, Nissan
Motor was ordered to reimburse Mr. Nissan only $52k in legal fees, of the over
$3 million Mr. Nissan was forced to spend, and Nissan Motor began pursuing a
frivolous trademark filing so they could make a second attempt to steal the
domain by use of legal force. [0]

Anyway, businesses can't be represented by an entrepreneur in court, they have
to be represented by a member of the bar. If you can't afford to regularly
refresh a 6-figure retainer as your lawyers fend off the vultures, you're
basically SOL. You have to comply, or be sued. If you get sued and proceed
without retaining good counsel, it's likely that you'll end up more FUBAR'd
than you would've been if you had just complied with whatever the demand was
in the first place. Compare _Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc._ , where
the entrepreneur had issues keeping counsel on board and ended up being held
personally liable for $3 million in damages.

As such, if any big corp is able to identify things they don't like before
those things have begun to generate dozens of millions in annual revenues
(enough to semi-comfortably fork over $500k-$1m/yr for legal defense), they
can pretty successfully sue them out of existence. This happens regularly, you
just don't hear about it that often.

[0] [http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php](http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php)

~~~
sandstrom
I agree with all of the above.

Another detail is the 'loser pays' principle[1], which (barely) exist in the
US, but is prevalent in almost all other civilized countries.

It's solve purpose is to dampen the effect of frivolous lawsuits, by making
the instigator pay for the whole carouse (wasting other peoples time and
wasting the legal system's time).

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_(attorney%27s_f...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_\(attorney%27s_fees\))

~~~
drdaeman
But does it really solve the problem of bullying?

I mean, BigCo sues you. They threaten you they have 100 attorneys they can get
off the leash. Even if they're most obviously in the wrongs, you'll have to
get somewhat matching manpower to thwart the pressure. And even if you win and
BigCo pays for all of the mess, you need a very large sum of money while this
isn't over. So, a barrier for justice is still there. (Not to say the only
real winning side here are attorneys, because they're practically fed a giant
amount of money.)

And then there's a fear of "and what if I lose"...

~~~
cookiecaper
>But does it really solve the problem of bullying?

I think it's a hard problem to reorganize the system to prevent big corporate
bullying. I think any potential solution would be pretty sweeping.

One idea would be to require MegaCorp (defined maybe as $100m+ annual revenue)
to pay the legal fees of the small defendant (defined maybe as <= $20m annual
revenue). MegaCorp would have to bear this cost even if they won, meaning they
could only sue little guys if it was _really worth it_. MegaCorp would pay the
same amount they pay their attorneys into a trust managed by the court, which
would allow the small defendant to select his own lawyers. This would ensure
that both sides have equally-adequate representation.

A second solution is to lower the cost of litigation in general, which would
be accomplished by de-formalization of the system and greater local
sovereignty. Why does it have to take 10 years and $5 million to have a
dispute settled? Companies are already trying to make something like this the
_de facto_ legal system by forcing arbitration against their helpless victims;
arbitration might not be bad in theory, but under the current practice, it's
an unnerving prospect, since you're going into a black hole.

~~~
bryondowd
I was thinking it would be effective to have a variation of your first
solution. But rather than having special rules for big vs small cases, just
have a rule that the instigator has to set aside money for the defendant,
equal to it's own court and legal costs. Then, if they win, the defendant has
to repay it (although if you are suing a tiny company, they may cease to exist
after, leaving no means of collection). So, if MegaCorp sues Little Guy, Inc,
and puts 5 mil into it's case, it has to stick another 5 mil into a trust
account for Little Guy to use for defense. So, it better be willing to lose
that much or be very certain about it's case, and Little Guy has nothing to
worry about or any reason to cave unless there's a significant chance of
losing, even with equal resources. Seems to me the defender should have an
advantage in most cases.

------
firasd
Looking forward to reading these patents to learn their cutting-edge
blockchain implementation for making a $1 overdraft accrue $35 in fees.

~~~
analog31
That's a different form of "mining."

~~~
thenerdfiles
"to mine" =def (trans.) the act of declaring exclusive ownership rights of an
object for the speaker of the sentence.

~~~
shitgoose
why downvote? it is funny.

~~~
thenerdfiles
Because they're Old Guards.

------
mabbo
Someone smarter than me, please explain: are they seriously just trying to
patent bitcoin, which already exists? Or are they inventing new ideas that can
be done with blockchain technology?

~~~
nickodell
These are the patents they are applying for:

[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency&d=PG01)

Some of them seem remarkably frivolous:

>System and Method for Wire Transfers Using Cryptocurrency

>[...] The processor can transfer the first quantity of the cryptocurrency to
a second cryptocurrency exchange and initiate the sale of the first quantity
of the cryptocurrency at the second cryptocurrency exchange. The processor is
further able to initiate the transfer of at least a portion of the resulting
currency to a recipient.

~~~
hkmurakami
>Some of them seem remarkably frivolous:

As are most patent filings (including some of my own)

~~~
meowface
>As are most patent filings (including some of my own)

Why file them, then? (The fact that you admitted to it suggests you have a
valid and ethical reason to do so.)

~~~
trentmb
> Why file them, then?

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

~~~
devdas
That's the modern day equivalent of "I was just following orders".

~~~
mikestew
Yes, having your employer file a patent on your work (whether you want them to
or not) is very much like taking part in the killing of humans through
starvation, experimentation, and gas chambers.

~~~
dclowd9901
While his comparison was clumsily drawn from Nazi participants, I think we can
agree that the idea of blind participation is something worth criticizing. The
reason corporations wield so much power is because everyone is willing to
undercut everyone else.

~~~
mikestew
Fair enough (enough to click the up arrow for a point well made), though I
don't think participation in the patent system is _quite_ as clear-cut.
Gassing Jews? The vast majority would agree that this goes to the far end of
the "evil" scale, if not defining the maximum of that scale. Having your
employer patent your work? Meh, I'm pretty sure opinions will fail all over
the scale, including the "good" end or at least the "still better than kicking
puppies" part of the scale. For instance, I personally find software patents
to be pointless and perhaps suppressing of innovation, but I don't get
terribly rabid about it. But you're right, blind participation is certainly
worthy of criticism, even if I don't necessarily agree that _any_
participation is wrong.

~~~
coldtea
How about drug patents, resulting in thousands of deaths because people in the
developing world can't make and afford cheap alternatives?

And no, those patents (and the inflated prices) don't happen just to
overcompensate for the "cost of research/FDA approval". The drug company often
still has healthy, or rather ridiculously large, profit margins, on top of
these costs.

~~~
mikestew
_How about drug patents_

I believe the context was software patents.

------
thegayngler
How someone is allowed to patent something that already exists is beyond me?
What is the patent office doing over there? I don't think they are doing their
jobs properly if Bank of America was allowed to patent technology they didn't
create.

~~~
coldtea
> _How someone is allowed to patent something that already exists is beyond
> me_

Obviously because the patent process is just a timestamp thing that says "I've
registered this idea at this time".

It's then up to the court to rule on a any clashes, e.g. when somebody else
has a similar registration from an earlier time.

~~~
nitrogen
Patents are supposed to be rejected _before_ they are granted if they don't
meet the requirements for patentability, though. To do otherwise destroys the
value of patents for anyone but the wealthiest corporations.

~~~
jacquesm
> To do otherwise destroys the value of patents for anyone but the wealthiest
> corporations.

You may be on to something there.

------
lordnacho
Don't get me wrong, I think Bitcoin is an amazing technical (and economic)
wonder.

But after starting (and quitting) a BTC business with a guy, and getting a
BTC-related patent with another guy, I've come to the conclusion that
blockchain technologies are a solution looking for a problem, and the only
current problem being solved is how to illegally move money.

This is of course a standard thing to say for someone who's just come across
BTC (like a savvy old businessman friend of mine) but I've actually looked at
the code, talked to people who wanted BTC (a couple of nerds and an army of
drug dealers / drug customers), and so on for a long while.

All the blockchain uses I've come across have seemed to be bolt-on hype
motivated rather than genuine uses of the technology. I'm even doing a
standard web project for a guy who thinks it will be useful to keep track of
stuff in containers. I come from the finance industry, so I think I also know
a bit about the requirements there, and they don't need it.

So let's look at what blockchain technology lets you do:

1) You get an indelible wall that grows every 10 minutes. You can write
whatever you like on it. Well, that's great but you can do that with a normal
database. It's well known how to do it, there's backup processes, security,
various consistency measures, scaling, and so on that are established.

2) You don't need to run your own database. This is great if you don't want
the network to be closed due to malfunction or police intervention. But banks
already know how to run a database, they have hordes of people doing that. And
they have to comply with information requests from the authorities. And
someone, somewhere needs to have all the records, which they will want
compensation for. I suggest AWS and the likes (in house), running an old
fashioned DB would require orders of magnitude less compensation for similar
amounts of traffic.

3) The network automates the ledger system so we don't need as many back
office staff. Well, there's no magic here. If you write a blockchain for
securities operations, the logic still needs to be written by someone. There's
existing protocols for this kind of stuff, and there's existing automation at
the banks for processing this stuff. Even if you decide to go blockchain, you
will have to meet with the other banks to make sure everyone agrees so they'll
want to be on the same chain. You're still going to need back office staff to
make sure the inputs and outputs make sense.

Anyway, I've yet to see a blockchain use that both requires and is improved by
using the blockchain.

~~~
LAMike
For some business needs, the Blockchain makes no sense.

That being said, here's my devils advocate for your 3 complaints:

1.) Yes, you can make your servers redundant, and keep them up 24/7, or you
can use the pay as you go model with the Blockchain. The difference is like
keeping a car idling vs. using an electric car.

2.) Writing things to the Blockchain can be very beneficial compared to your
own database. Ownership of offline things like bikes can be done with a
Bluetooth/NFC chip and a bitcoin address. Also for online transactions, it
provides a tamper-free source of truth.

3.) You argue that someone would still have to write the logic for the
Blockchain apps. That's definitely true but the impact of a Blockchain startup
might replace a higher ratio of jobs than you expect. (Like Kodak vs.
Instagram numbers)

Give it time, it's still early to call it a bust just yet.

~~~
lordnacho
1) Servers costs barely anything to run these days. Heck I've got several just
for messing about with code.

2) My patent is about something like this. Sure, it works, I actually did this
with NFCs and an Andriod app. But it's a heck of a lot easier just to ask a
REST API who owns this NFC. Tamper proofing can be done using pieces of
bitcoin (like ECDSA) without using the blockchain. Then you're just back to
using a PKI.

3) The question is whether there's anything actually new here. Computers came
to wall street a long, long time ago. You'd think most of the gains have
already been made. Back office has been decimated over recent decades. It
might continue, sure, I'm open to that suggestion.

I'm not declaring a bust; I think something will come of it. But the things
I've seen up to now don't seem to need it. Something like that DNS idea, that
wasn't bad. But I do see a lot of business types hyping the blockchain, and I
don't think it's entirely thought through.

~~~
lsseckman
currently creating a smart contracts application on a private blockchain and
came to a similar thought as your #2

> using pieces of Bitcoin

ECDSA is great, have you run across any db's using it? Seems like a great
component to extract from the blockchain craze

~~~
lordnacho
Well, you can just glue a signature to a row of data manually. As long as you
know how to concat/Merkle/hash the info together it provides the same
guarantees.

------
rubyfan
Many big companies file patents for defensive reasons and do not pursue
offensive activities. If BoA thought they might use a block chain in the
future for example, having a patent can neutralize the threat of a competitor
limiting their ability to use that method to support business activities. It's
sort of a mutually assured distruction approach.

~~~
yuubi
At least some use publications like
[http://www.researchdisclosure.com/](http://www.researchdisclosure.com/)
instead. I know the print edition at least used to exist and have subscribers
because there were some shelves of it in the local university library.

------
barrkel
I expect this is an insurance move: iterate through the cross-product of
bitcoin concepts and current banking tech, eliminate the nonsensical pairings,
and make plausible applications for the remainder. That way they cover their
bases in case there's something game-changing lurking within.

------
race2tb
It is going to be hard to monitize blockchain just like torrents.I think it is
best developed by a non for profit that is funded by some major players to
keep it unbias and trustworthy to the benifit of market participants.

------
pwm
Interesting tangential thought experiment: what happens when, in the near
future, some AI created software violates a patent? For example a hypothetical
UI optimiser algo creates a slider which happens to be patented? :)

~~~
deciplex
We let that AI out of the box and point it at patent trolls.

~~~
stcredzero
What's a little apocalypse, so long as we take the patent trolls down with us?
(And civilization, and the species...)

~~~
yc1010
Just dont call it SKYNET, you be sued by Hollywood then for copyright
infringement or something...

------
ChristianGeek
Bank of America is the Comcast of banking.

------
tuyguntn
I think people should be able to vote for patent acceptance, if more than 60%
of voters consider that idea is great, let company own this patent. Patent
office should do research before publishing to vote. Otherwise people can
patent everything.

\- Technology the Sun uses to shine, technology and methods for light which
creates light space in dark space.

\- Internal structure of fingers to click mouse/keyboard

\- State of the mind before buying something ...

~~~
ucho
Doesn't sound realistic. Have you seen text of any patent? It is completely
unreadable to normal people. I always thought that ToS or legislations look
bad, but usually they put all definitions in one place. In patents all of that
is inlined, 20 words phrase instead of just "computer". Having some domain
knowledge before voting could also take few months or years ... BTW why do we
even award patents? Seriously - if many people, in many places had the same
idea, on their own, why should we grant a monopoly to one of them? That would
probably require some replacement system for drugs, we don't want the
ingredients to be secret but I don't how exactly should it work.

------
Dowwie
Following is my unsubstantiated theory about recent bank involvement in
bitcoin: The banks won't go down without a fight. They're setting up a legal
minefield for bitcoin entrepreneurs. I doubt they'll use these patents other
than to protect the status quo. If the patent minefield doesn't work, they'll
capture the market by investing in their own ringfenced version of the
blockchain (see "the open ledger project") and PR the hell out of it to ensure
that it gets adopted rather than someone else's.

Granted, their strategy won't work if they can't influence adoption or sue the
pants off of startup competitors.

Again, this is just a theory. Maybe they really do all of a sudden want to
spend millions on something that does basically what their existing services
do except they can't control. /sarcasm

~~~
VonGuard
I think you're heading in the wrong direction. First, I think they are buying
these for protection, so they can experiment with blockchain tech and no get
sued.

Second, I think they want this for inter-bank commerce, not for end users. It
makes more sense to implement for banks as a way for them to exchange monies
between themselves, at least, at first.

~~~
tobltobs
Protection against whom, Satoshi Nakamoto? And why should they use it for
interbank transactions? Isn't there already a working interbank transactions
system?

------
civild
It's not surprising that banks are interested in blockchain technology, if not
necessarily Bitcoin itself. Patenting technology is very common by these
companies and it is almost always a protection measure against them being sued
for using it.

------
awgneo
It brings me great joy to watch as the world's banking institutions become the
atavisms of our time. What is so innovative or patentable about a distributed
database? Bitcoin is the only real innovation and it needs not said
institutions.

------
joshfraser
Great ammo for suing future competitors in the financial space.

~~~
radiorental
That generally not how corporations use patents. Patent trolls - yes, but
patents are almost always a defense.

~~~
joshfraser
Depends on the corporation. The tech industry tends to be pretty good about
using patents defensively, but there are notable exceptions. For example,
Akamai has built a reputation of suing every new startup that enters the CDN
space for patent infringement (Limelight, Speedera, Cotendo, etc). Ask any VC
in the valley to fund your CDN biz and they'll ask you what your patent
portfolio looks like and how big of a war chest you're building to fight the
inevitable lawsuits.

------
nickpsecurity
This is exactly why I posted in a previous thread that OSS projects and even
public domain stuff need to patent their ass off. They should collect it into
nonprofits that defend OSS institutions. Aside from self-defense, the main
reason to patent all this stuff is so the big companies can't. This example
shows they will do it any opportunity they can for anti-competitive purposes.

~~~
deegles
Is the bitcoin community large enough to support a nonprofit like that? How
many patent lawyers would they need and how much would that cost?

~~~
nickpsecurity
I have no idea. I'd start with organizations like FSF and Apache plus
companies that benefit from OSS like Red Hat. Any key, differentiating
innovations in their projects or dependencies would be up for patenting. Then,
reviewers would look at the strategic importance of the techs to prioritize
them. Then, they'd patent as many as their budget allows.

That's a start.

------
acd
But Bank of America did not invent Bitcoin so there has to be prior art. I
think the banks realise that with bitcoin tech consumers do not need banks
anymore. You do not need a bank to trade stocks, to change currency.

Basically how can you get patents for someone else invention?

~~~
golergka
The article didn't say that they are trying to file patents for blockchain.

The article says that they are trying to file patents _related_ to blockchain.

Surely, if they actually invent something new on top of existing technology,
they can file a patent for that?

------
return0
Maybe they want to win time against competitors with "patent pending" products
(regardless if they ll be granted the patent). Does that mean they are working
on bitcoin products? Have they announced anything?

------
nvader
Is there a way for the public to challenge a patent application during the
process? If there isn't, what would be the most expedient way of getting such
a step added to the application process?

~~~
kalyanganjam
You can try
[http://patents.stackexchange.com/](http://patents.stackexchange.com/)
Background info can be located at
[https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/09/askpatents-com-a-
stac...](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/09/askpatents-com-a-stack-
exchange-to-prevent-bad-patents/)

------
shmerl
That's sick. They clearly abuse the patent system to ban competition threat
here. It's another clear demonstration that software patents shouldn't exist.

------
hackaflocka
Doesn't Warren Buffett own a large percentage of BOA? This is the Buffett
strategy, use the public sphere to allow private entities to acquire monopoly
power. He did this with his opposition to the Keystone Pipeline so that his
trains would benefit from the need to move oil in that corridor.

~~~
everyone
I've been thinking recently that powerful people treating the real world like
a game is possibly one of the most destructive forces in society.

~~~
DiabloD3
It depends entirely what their end goal is.

To make money with no regards to anything else? Yes, they are dangerous to the
human race and should be treated as the absolute worst terrorists possible.

However, if their end goal is to actually leave the world a better place than
when it was when they were born, and it just happens it takes being one of the
richest people ever to do that? More power to them, and I hope they succeed.

Not all rich and powerful people are assholes, some just want to make the
world less shitty, and some actually succeed at it.

~~~
everyone
By "treat like a game" I mean, play to win, with winning defined as beating
the other guy.

I arrived at this line of though when I started wondering why would the head
decision makers of (for example) trafigura decide to horribly pollute the
Ivory coast just so they can squeeze out a bit of extra profit, when they are
all already super-rich. You can only enjoy so many yachts and so on. I arrived
at the conclusion that their motivation is not to get more money per se, its
to beat the other guys.

~~~
everyone
ps. Above is just the product of my idle musings. One thing that _is_ very
interesting and related and certainly worth mentioning is one of the elements
of Jared Diamonds framework for societal collapse: Decision makers being
insulated from the negative consequences of their decisions.

~~~
windowsworkstoo
duh power > money

------
golergka
Article text: patents are RELATED to blockchain

Headline: patents for TECHNOLOGY BEHIND bitcoin

Comments on HN: OMG THEY ARE PATENTING SOMETHING ALREADY INVENTED, EVIL STUPID
BANKS, EVIL STUPID PATENTS, EVIL STUPID LAWS

Yes, their patents include descriptions of already known tech, but at first
glance, these two actually look like new and interesting stuff:

[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=3&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=\(%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency\)&OS=%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency&RS=\(%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency\))

[http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-
adv.html&r=6&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=\(%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency\)&OS=%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency&RS=\(%22bank+of+america%22+AND+cryptocurrency\))

~~~
deciplex
None of that shit looks new _or_ interesting.

~~~
golergka
May be I'm not aware of all that blockchain does, but does it really provide
risk scores based on transaction histories?

~~~
stymaar
> [The] claims must meet relevant patentability requirements, such as novelty,
> usefulness, and non-obviousness. (wikipedia)

Novelty may be fulfilled, but like in many software patents, the “non-
oblivious” part is really questionable here.

~~~
golergka
Questionable — agreed. This doesn't make it something that was already
implemented.

~~~
stymaar
> This doesn't make it something that was already implemented.

That's exactly my point : because it's already implemented doesn't mean you
can register a patent on it. You cannot register “obvious” things, even if
nobody uses it already.

~~~
golergka
I never said that they should be granted these patents. I'm not an expert. It
_seemed_ to me that it was new and interesting; now I see how I was wrong
about that, yes.

But my main point was that these patents are not obvious bullshit of patenting
the blockchain principle itself.

