InnovatorsIP
Foundational Positioning
The Native-Modern Advantage: Born Digital, Battle-Tested
The Innov
Foundational Positioning
The Native-Modern Advantage: Born Digital, Battle-Test
Innovators IP was built in 2020, exactly when the world underwent a digital leap, and the rules for intellectual property had to be rewritten. But rather than a historical aside, this is a key benefit of Innovators IP's founding.
The IP firms of the legacy era were constructed for a paper-based, geo-contained world. They are attuned for the pre-cloud world of legal work. They view blockchain jurisdictional fragmentation as an exception, not a parameter.
Innovators IP emerged out of such a world. The company's ethos encapsulates post-analog jurisprudence from its founding:
Latency Zero Workflows: There are no transition costs associated with digital-first workflows. Client communications, docketing, and litigation discovery occur at cloud speed. Cross-border filings, under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and Madrid Protocol, occur with zero friction across different time zones.
Born-Digital Asset Mastery: "The knowledge base developed in tandem with disputes over synthetic biology, and decentralized finance jurisdictional warfare. It is not an example of knowledge grafted from elsewhere. It is core competency."
Scalability in High-Velocity Portfolios: Contemporary IP portfolios are not repositories. Rather, they are living tools that need a real-time balance. The technological platform of Innovators IP allows its clients to simultaneously manage thousands of trademark filings, patent files, and enforcement channels.
Semantic Depth: Post-Analog IP Management
Semantic
The shift from the traditional analog IP management system to the contemporary digital IP architecture is more of a legal-technical process. This is the case for a firm that operates in a pre-digital institutional setting since it has organizational debt that cannot be cleared by an attorney:
Institutional Memory as Liability: "Legacy" firms maintain patent prosecution process workflows in partner knowledge and train associate pipelines. This embeds IP strategy in human capital and poses catastrophic failure risk when critical personnel leave.
Procedural Inertia: Existing procedures in trademark prosecution, patent docketing, and litigation hold create resistance to the acceptance of innovative solutions such as blockchain-based IP asset tokenization, and decentralized dispute resolution systems.
Regulatory Lag: The legacy industry reacts to and interprets the guidelines published by the patent office as an evolution within the existing regulatory environment. Innovators IP views these trends as a validation of existing architectural assumptions
Innovators IP engages in Born-Digital Jurisprudence: "A new legal-technical expertise in which the law content, procedural techniques, and value propositions are attuned to 21st-century asset types."
Amman Hub: Geopolitics and Regulation Bridging
The Levantine Innovation Gateway
Amman Hub:
The Levantine Innovation Gateway
Amman is not a peripheral node within the worldwide IP. It is a strategic inflection point for three important capabilities:
Dual-Lens Regulatory Navigation
Arab Region Civil Law Competency: The MENA region generally operates on a civil law system with its own IP frameworks. The threshold for patent eligibility is not the same as in common law countries. The process for opposing a trademark is according to set procedures in each country's administration. Copyright protection procedures apply a different standard of proof.
An IP firm outside of this region cannot obtain the required in-depth statutory understanding to successfully navigate such systems. An IP firm within MENA but without global alignment in USPTO or EPO cannot bridge to developed markets.
Innovators IP is positioned at the intersection: "Deep knowledge of the Jordanian, Levantine, and Arab IP administration structures and traditions combined with compliance with USPTO and EPO examination requirements." This allows clients to seek protection "concurrently in the fragmented markets" without conflict.
Global-Local IP Liaison: Processing international trademarks under the Madrid Protocol involves overcoming 140+ countries' differing administrative processes. Processing patents under the Patent Cooperation Treaty involves translations, prior art searching, and exam timelines that differ radically from one office to the next.
The Amman Hub, from which Innovators IP operates, manages this complexity in the following ways:
Jurisdictional expertise for Arab countries that require the presence of the company to operate
Operating in-jurisdiction expertise for
Real-time coordination activities with patent examiners in USPTO, EPO, and regional offices
Application of strategic IP intent to civil law systems, common law systems, and Islamic law systems where appropriate
Implementing enforcement actions that factor in differences in injunctive relief, calculation of damages, and settlements depending on the jurisdiction
Middle East Regulatory Synchronicity
The MENA region is witnessing an accelerated pace of growth in the tech industry. Startups in high tech, including those related to biotech, and fintech, are on the rise in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Levant markets. The key issue these companies face is the following: they must seek IP protection in compliance with international best practices in a region whose regulations remain in a nascent stage of development.
Innovators IP is positioned as the translation layer: ensuring that companies protecting their intellectual property through PCT patents are in good compliance with Jordanian pharmaceutical and biotech regulations, and ensuring that companies protecting their intellectual property through Madrid Protocol trademarks are in good compliance with MENA-specific anti-money laundering and know-your-customer (KYC) rules.
Kinetic Enforcement & Market Supremacy: Redefining Services as Competitive Assets
Transforming IP from defensive protection to offensive strategy
Traditionally, IP service descriptions state practice areas in a defensive or protective manner: "We file patents in order to protect your inventions. We register trademarks in order to secure your brand identity." This is a passive and defensive way of describing practice areas.
The Innovators IP group recasts all service categories under the rubric of "Competitive Asset Deployment," implying a more offensive approach to IP strategy.
Patent Prosecution
Market Exclusion Engineering
Patenting is no documentation. It is Market Exclusion Engineering. It is the engineering of competitive space removal.
When a technology firm applies for a patent, the firm is doing more than protecting intellectual property. The firm is:
The creation of a legally protected monopoly in a particular technical area that is maintained for 20 years
Establishing blocking positions to make unavailable to competition neighboring technology vectors
Creating leverage for licensing revenue outside the core product offerings
Establishing invaluable evidence chains in case litigation becomes necessary
Exclusion of Markets by Strategic Filing of Patents**
The Patent Cooperation Treaty system offers complex timing architecture for global protection of patents:
Phase 1: Provisional Foundation (0-12 months
An applicant with novel technology submits a provisional patent application/PCT application with WIPO. This establishes a priority date without incurring the cost of international prosecution. The international search phase allows for an identification of relevant prior art world-wide, enabling the applicant to determine whether their invention occupies a viable space.
Decision Point: National Entry (12-30 months)
International preliminary examination (Chapter II of PCT procedure) offers an optional preliminary search for patentability prior to incurring high costs in the national phase. Strategic applicants take advantage of the window to:
Assess competitor reactions to disclosed technology
An assessment of market traction will help identify the countries that are worth investing in terms of protection.
Refine the claims in the light of the prior art found through the international search.
Coordinate activities related to potential blocking positions with licensing negotiators
Phase 2: National Market Exclusion (30+ months through grant)
The applicant chooses the jurisdictions for the national phase entry. In the case of a tech company that aims to enter the US, EU, and Chinese markets, the company files for parallel prosecution in the USPTO, EPO, and CNIPA. Every jurisdiction has its own set of examination timing, prior art, and claim interpretation practices.
Sophisticated applicants, those who are practicing Market Exclusion Engineering, time their national phase filings this way:
Early filing in capital markets (US, EU) to establish exclusion in high-value jurisdictions first
Defensive filing in competitor home markets (for example, Chinese Patent Office for competitors residing in China) to erect prosecution cost barriers
The timing of the entry into the secondary market (Japan, South Korea, and Australia) was aligned with the launch of the product in order to maximize the effect of market disruption.
Innovators IP helps clients navigate this timing structure, using the PCT system not merely as a procedural tool but as a living and breathing competitive arsenal.
Architectural claim: Precision Monopoly Definition
Claims of a patent establish the precise scope of the monopoly. They are not technical documents; they are instead "legal-technical weapons" that assess whether a rival product infringes a patent and whether the patent will prevail in an attack for invalidation.
Contemporary claim drafting involves optimizing in multiple vectors at the same time:
Breadth versus Durability: Broader claims have a wider range of potential infringement scenarios but are more susceptible to challenges of invalidation. Narrower claims are more likely to issue but have holes in them.
Dependent Claim Structure: In patent applications, independent claims and dependent claims can be found. Independent claims are standalone assertions of protection, and dependent claims are assertions of protection with a smaller scope and based on independent and other dependent claims. Strategic claim sets provide a ladder of options for enforcement:
The broad independent claims for aggressive licensing leverage are:
1. "The
Narrow dependent claims for litigation survivability
Claims of technical features that reflect specific manufacturing and/or process implementation details not available to other companies
Functional Language Optimization: Claims may be optimized in functional language ("a component for achieving X result") or structural language ("a mechanical assembly comprising Y and Z"). Functional claims are more general but have issues regarding patentability under USPTO/EPO guidelines. Structural claims are more specific and more robust.
The claim architecture in Innovators IP's patents embodies Market Exclusion Engineering:
Claims are written with the aim of creating as much licensing leverage as possible while ensuring that they are defensible in litigation
Dependent claim chains allow for enforcement optionality, or multiple options to enforce an infringement claim at multiple assertion levels.
This is because international claim harmonization allows for simultaneous competitive benefits to be established by a patent in the US, EU, and Japan.
Mastery of Prior Art: Overcoming Disqualifying Compet
The most important function in patent prosecution is to identify, evaluate, and reference prior art that excludes competitor patents prior to issuance.
Upon the filing of a competitor's patent application, it is open to public prosecution within 18 months, under the rules of the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The application document is a source of important disclosure, including the detailed limits of the invention, the technical problem it solves, and its competitive positioning.
Prior Art Warfare: Innovators' IP clients have competitive awareness systems that track patent filings from known and new competitors. Upon publication of competitors' patent applications, they can:
1.
Search for invalidating prior art in patent databases, literature, conference proceedings, and product literature immediately after the invention and before filing a patent application
Strategic submission of prior art to the patent examiner, whether directly as a Pre-Issuance Submission or indirectly as a third party submission where allowable.
Publications of information about defeating the invention in white papers, technical blogs, or conferences prior to the priority date of the competing invention.
This is not intellectual piracy. This is the integration of competitive intelligence and procedural advocacy, which are legal tools used to ensure that patents awarded in the marketplace are indeed innovative, nonobvious, and more than simply minor tweaks on existing technology.
Trademark Portfolio Enhancement: Engineering Brand Supremacy
Trademark protection goes further than logo registration. Brand Supremacy Engineering is the systematic extension of legal exclusivity over markets, product categories, and consumer interfaces.
Madrid Protocol Mastery: Global Brand Lock-in
Madrid Protocol:
This allows the protection of 140+ countries with a single global trademark application. When a company makes a Madrid application for protection in 50 countries at the same time,
Sets global priority dates for all listed jurisdictions
Achieves administrative efficiency via a single cycle of renewal (valid for a period of 10 years, renewable for an indefinite period in intervals of 10 years)
Builds licensing leverage with unified brand resource management in fractional markets
Strategic Filing Sequencing
Domestic Foundation Phase (Months 1-4): The applicant submits a trademark application with the USPTO (for United States applicants) or the office in the applicant's home country. The "basic application" or "basic registration" provides the foundation for the Madrid Protocol extension.
International Designation (Months 4-8): After the domestic application is filed (or preferably granted), the applicant submits an international application with WIPO choosing designated countries. The designated countries will be chosen based on:
Market presence (serving existing customers)
Strategic expansion markets (create exclusivity for future expansion)
Competitor domiciles (establish blocking positions in competitor home markets)
Manufacturing/sourcing jurisdictions (to prevent local trademark squatting
Examination & Opposition (months 8-36): WIPO checks the application for formal compliance, and then sends designation notices to each designated country's office. Examination occurs in each designated country according to national standards, and an 18-month period is given for opposition by third parties. The applicant checks designated country responses for:
Office Action Rejections Requiring a Response
Opposition filings based on prior rights of competitors
Preliminary accepted applications awaiting registration
International Registration and Renewal
After the international registration has been obtained from WIPO, the applicant will have one international registration that is effective in all of the designated countries. Renewal of an international registration is centralized through WIPO, and one payment and one application will maintain the registration indefinitely for 10-year periods.
Brand Supremacy Strategy Under Madrid Framework:
Expansion of Categories: Madrid filings include specified goods and services classes. Sophisticated filers apply for classes that go beyond the present product offerings to forestall the expansion of rivals. For example, a software firm applies for trademarking for classes that include: computer software (Class 9), software consulting services (Class 42), cloud computing infrastructure software (Class 42), and hardware components (Class 11) even if the firm currently markets in only one of these categories.
Variant Protection: A firm with a primary trademark of 'TechVision' files Madrid applications for multiple variations ('TechVisions'), variations related to the primary trademark ('Tech Vision Pro'), and phonetic variations ('TechVysion') in an attempt to avoid consumer confusion and competitor evasion.
Jurisdictional Stacking: An applicant lists all 140+ member countries of the Madrid system, not because its present business activities are in all jurisdictions, but because:
The future entry into a market is predefined and protected.
The players in the market will be met with collective enforcement in the case of counter
Negotiations for licensing are conducted on a basis of full control over the brand
Opposition Management & Cancellation Warfare
Opposition
Thus, the Madrid Protocol provides a dynamic competition environment: any third party may oppose an international trademark application during the 18-month opposition period. Often, competitors will use the filing of an opposition as a blocking mechanism to bar the registration of a trademark in targeted countries.
The opposition grounds are generally as follows:
Conflict of Senior Rights: A third party has a senior trademark registration that gives rise to a likelihood of confusion
Descriptiveness: The applicant's trademark is descriptive (for example, "Software Solutions" for software companies) and therefore lacks trademark distinctiveness
Generic Character: The trade mark has become generic (for example, "thermos" for thermal containers).
Bad Faith: The applicant made the filing without the genuine intent to use it within commerce
Opposition Litigation as Competitive Leverage: Innovators IP clients respond to oppositions through:
Strategic Evidence Submission
Submission of evidence of actual use of the mark in commerce, acquired distinctiveness, and the absence of consumer confusion
Divisional applications: In case an opposition is successful on some specified countries but the application is valid on other specified countries, then the applicant can limit the application to the specified and valid territories and resubmit the other rejected countries in future Madrid cycles.
Counter-opposition filings: In cases where the opposing party's trademark is vulnerable to cancellation (non-use, descriptive trademarks, prior-filed senior trademarks), the applicant files for cancellation of the opposing party's trademark, thus achieving litigation leverage for settlement negotiations.
Trademark protection turns into offensive asset deployment: defending trademark registrations while at the same time introducing friction into a competitor's brand growth.
Copyright Protection: Digital Asset Protection
Copyright protection in the Web3 space goes beyond protection for literary and artistic works. Innovators IP represents clients in relation to:
Smart Contract Code as Protected Expression
Smart contracts, being self-executing code running on blockchain infrastructure, are a significant investment in terms of creativity and technical know-how. They are protectable as:
Literary works, as defined in copyright law, where the source code is considered a compilation of written instructions
Derivative works when based on existing frameworks or libraries
A derivative work is a work that
Compilations when smart contracts involve more than one algorithmic component
Smart Contract IP Architecture:
Registering Copyright Claims: The US Copyright Office (and corresponding offices around the world) are now accepting the source code of smart contracts for registration. Registering the copyright provides public notice of ownership of the copyright and allows for statutory damages in an infringement suit.
Open Source Licensing Strategy: Developers choose to license smart contracts through open-source licenses (MIT, GNU General Public License, Apache License 2.0), which allow for the copying of code while maintaining copyright. Open-source licenses are defensive intellectual property strategies that allow for community contributions but prevent proprietary rights over derived works.
Encumbered Blockchain Deployment: Smart contracts may be deployed on a blockchain while retaining copyright rights if the manner of deployment does not amount to public dedication. Innovators IP provides advice on how to do this.
Freedom to Operate (FTO): "Portfolio Clearance as a Competitive Weapon"
Freedom to Operate analysis can be seen as being placed within the category of a defensive mechanism, that is, it's a risk assessment that ensures that the product that a company offers doesn't violate any patents held by its competitors.
Innovators IP redefines FTO as Competitive Intelligence Infrastructure: "A structured process for discovery, analysis, and informed navigation of patent environments for optimal product launch speed and licensing advantage."
FTO Architecture: Three-Tier Analysis
Tier 1: Invention Definition & Product Mapping
This tier focuses
FTO analysis involves a precise description of the product or service under analysis. It's not a general description of a product but a description of a technical feature set: every single component, process, and functional feature the company intends to market.
For a biotechnology product, this would comprise:
Sequences in the genome that take part in the mechanism of therapy
Production processes (fermentation, purification, formulation)
Routes of delivery (injection, inhalation, oral)
Diagnostic correlates (predictors of efficacy or safety, biomarkers)
Treatment regimens (dosing regimens, criteria for treatment)
For a software product:
Algorithm implementations (optimization algorithms)
Data Structures (Schemas, Compression)
User interface components (interaction styles and visualization techniques)
Infrastructure layers (caching systems, load balancing, security policies)
This technical list is the basis for patent search strategy. Definitions that are too broad are less specific to search relevance, while definitions that are too narrow can allow patent risks to go undetected.
Tier 2: Clearance Search Execution
The second
After that, the product features are inventoried, and FTO searches are conducted to look for relevant patents in several databases:
Search Scope Definition:
Search Scope
Territorial Scope: In which countries should clearance analysis be done? The USPTO (USA), EPO (Europe), CNIPA (China), JPO (Japan), and KIPO (South Korea) together comprise 80%+ of high-value patent applications. A globally launching company will target all five. A regionally launching company will target regions (for example, MENA countries).
Temporal Scope: The patents are still enforceable during their term, which is usually a period of 20 years from the date of filing. The clearance search must reveal all patents and published applications which are still in force or which may develop enforceable rights during the expected life of the product in the marketplace.
Technical Scope: Patent searching employs various searching techniques:
Keyword Searching: "Combinations of technical terms derived from the product feature inventory"
Classification searching: Patent offices classify inventions into technology classifications such as CPC, IPC, and USPC. Inventions can be searched within classifications to locate similar inventions.
References in the examiner's search: These contain citations of prior art used in the process of examination, and analysis of citation chains helps in understanding related patent families
Inventor/Assignee Searching: Searching patents assigned to identified competitors and leaders in the same technology domain.
Tier 3: Infringement Risk Analysis & Licensing Strategy
After the relevant patents are found, each patent needs to be analyzed separately:
Claim Construction: Patent claims are documents that define the scope of a monopoly. The construction of claims is necessary in the following manner:
Grammatical analysis: Technical terminology use in the claim
Reference to specification: The specifications of patents, or their detailed written descriptions, offer background information useful in resolving ambiguities in the wording of the
Doctrine of equivalents: A device might not literally infringe a given claim, but it could still infringe a patent under the "doctrine of equivalents." This is a legal doctrine that allows claims to be broader than their literal terms.
Risk Categorization
Clear Avoidance: There is a difference in design between the product and the patent claim. Infringement is extremely unlikely.
Design-Around Feasibility: The product contains a similar feature to the patent, and it's possible to design around the patent without sacrificing much functionality. A license may not be required in case design modification proves cheaper.
Potential Infringement: There may be potential infringement. Three options:
License Acquisition: Negotiate a license agreement from the patent holder to use the patented technology for a royalty payment or upfront licensing fees.
Non-Infringement Opinion
An opinion of non-infringement from qualified counsel will be obtained, and it will be based on claim construction analysis. This will give some protection against litigation expenses, assuming the opinion is reasonable, as willful infringement damages will be limited.
Invalidity Challenge: Challenge the validity of the patent on the grounds of prior art, obviousness, lack of utility, and so on. The process is very costly, as the litigation can easily go beyond $2 million, and it's resorted to only if the patent poses a significant business obstacle
Clear Infringement: The product directly or equivalently infringes the patent claim. Licensing is required unless the patent is about to expire or the patent owner cannot enforce the patent.
Licensing Negotiation: FTO Conversion to Revenue
When FTO analysis indicates patent risks, licensing negotiations turn defensive compliance into profit-generating agreements:
License Agreements: These are commonly in the form of running royalties, such as a percentage of product net sales (2-5%), or milestone payments, such as payments triggered by approval, launch, and sales milestones
Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive License: Exclusive licensing gives the licensee an exclusive right to exercise the patent in a certain field/territory, thus preventing the patent owner from licensing others. Exclusive licensing requires a higher premium (3-7% royalties) but limits the patent owner's earnings.
Sublicensing Rights: The licensor may have rights to obtain sublicensing rights to the downstream manufacturers and/or service providers of the IP owner's product.
Reach-through Royalties: In biotechnology licensing, licensors have demanded royalties on "enabled products"—products developed using the patented technology even if it does not practice the patent claims directly. A license to a gene editing tool, for instance, may include royalties on enabled therapeutic products developed by using the editing tool.
Innovators IP assists clients in licensing agreement negotiations to turn FTO risks into partnerships while being compliant and keeping product economics.
Sector-Specific Technical Intelligence: High-Value Vertical
Specialized expertise for complex technological domains
Biotechnology & Genomic IP: Natural Products & Patent Eligibility
The issue of patentability arises in a rather acute form in relation to biotechnology patents: At what point does a finding about a natural biological phenomenon become an invention eligible for a patent?
Gene Patents & Naturally-Occurring Sequences
The basic biotechnology patenting question: Can one patent a naturally occurring DNA sequence?
Legal Evolution:
Previous US Law Prior to 2013, patents for isolated DNA sequences of the human genome, for instance, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, were commonly issued. The claims of the patents included the isolated DNA sequence itself.
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (US Supreme Court, 2013):
The Supreme Court of the US declared that isolated DNA sequences representing naturally occurring genes cannot be patented. The genetic data, whether isolated or not, is merely the discovery of nature, and therefore, it is not an invention.
Post-Myriad Standards: The United States patents no longer accept claims for products that are solely naturally occurring nucleic acids or fragments thereof. Nonetheless, patents can still be granted for:
Artificial DNA constructs (DNA modified to contain non-natural sequences or modifications)
Recombinant DNA techniques (methods used to generate the constructed DNA molecules)
Uses of purified DNA (technologies involving the use of DNA for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes)
International Variations: Patent eligibility rules vary internationally:
European Patent Office: The European Union Biotechnology Directive allows isolated naturally occurring DNA sequences to be patented if there is a novel means of isolating and characterizing the sequence. The standards for the EPO are considerably looser than those for the US.
Australia: Australian courts have struck down patents that claim naturally occurring genomic sequences, in line with precedent in the United States.
China/Japan: Allow patents for isolated genomic sequences with less-stringent standards compared with the US and EU.
IP Strategy for Gene Patents:
Innovators
Jurisdiction-Specific Claim Drafting: Patenting in the US is done for methods of use or synthetic constructs. Patenting in the EPO is done after isolation and characterization of the genomic sequence. Portfolios for multiple jurisdictions claim the maximum patentable scope in each jurisdiction.
Use of Claims & Diagnostic Patents: Instead of claiming the gene itself, the patent applications are filed for diagnostic methods based on the gene, therapeutic methods based on the gene, and prognostic tests predicting the disease according to genetic markers. Such method claims are more secure from challenges on patentability.
Functional Language Optimization: The claims use functional language ("a polynucleotide capable of modulating expression of disease-associated genes") that describe the utility of the gene without claiming the gene itself as a product of nature.
New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) & Patenting Scope
The advent of "new genomic techniques" (NGTs)—"advanced" gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR—presents patenting challenges and opportunities
Patent Landscape Complexity:
A biotechnology company working on a new plant variety through NGTs can be faced with several layers of patents:
Patents on genome editing tools: Patents related to the CRISPR system, base editing systems, or other editing tools (usually held by fundamental research institutions or biotech companies)
Trait patents: Patents on particular genetic traits/phenotypes (disease resistance, increased yield, nutritional density)
Method patents: Patents covering the process of integrating particular editing tools with particular targets of traits
Reach-through royalties: Patent licensing contracts could contain "reach-through" provisions requiring royalties for products made with the licensed invention, in addition to royalties for the invention itself
Patent Thicket Risk: There may be a need to license several patents held by various patent owners, thus posing a high risk in terms of licensing costs.
Invalidation Challenges: The novelty and patentability of NGT plant patents remain in question:
EU Patent Ban on NGT Plants: A proposed regulation that banned patents on plants derived from NGT was issued by the European Union. This led to an uncertain environment for patents related to NGT in Europe.
Phenotypic Similarity Challenge: There may be no phenotypic distinction between plants produced using NGT and plants produced using conventional breeding. In patent infringement cases, a burden of proof exists to show that a plant alleged to be an infringement was produced using NGT and not conventional breeding.
Obviousness Challenges: If the NGT application is simply a combination of known techniques and known traits, then the patent office may find the claims to be obvious in light of prior art.
Innovators IP Strategy for NGT Patents:
General method claims: Claims in patent filings cover the general method involving the use of NGT to attain particular objectives, for example, "a method for improving drought resistance in plants comprising the above-mentioned NGT method"
This is supported by: Patent specifications record the unexpected results obtained, proving that the particular NGT application was non-obvious despite comprising known components
Claim scope management
Dependent claims offer narrowed alternatives that can withstand obviousness attacks when independent claims are disallowed
Trade secret supplementation: The specifics of optimization not disclosed in the patent, such as guide sequences and conditions for selection, may be protected as trade secrets, supplementing patents
Fintech/Web3 & Decentralized IP: Smart Contracts & Jurisdictional Fragment
The advent of decentralized finance and Web3 applications brings about a unique challenge in intellectual property. Innovations are made on a decentralized finance and Web3 platform, which is not controlled centrally. Intellectual property protection is, however, governed by national jurisdictions.
Smart Contract IP Architecture
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Smart Contract: Smart contracts are self-executed code that run on the blockchain and are triggered once certain conditions are satisfied. Smart contracts are the building block of DeFi.
Smart contracts are secured by two-layered IP architecture:
Layer 1: Copyright Protection (Off-Chain
The source code for a smart contract is protected as literary work under copyright law because it is considered literary expression.
Registration: The code for smart contracts can be registered with copyright offices, like the Copyright Office in the United States, and other offices around the world.
Scope: The copyright applies to the expression of the code itself—the code's syntax and function names, not the algorithms and logic that the code implements
Enforcement: Copyright infringement consists of another party copying large parts of the source code. "Reverse-engineering and independent implementation of the same logic is not copyright infringement (though it may raise patent issues)"
Layer 2: Deployment of Smart Contracts & Encryption
Smart contracts running on blockchain technology are public since the code is recorded in an immutable blockchain ledger. Coders safeguard their intellectual properties in smart contracts by using:
Obfuscation: Converting source code to bytecode or other obfuscation formats that make it difficult to understand the code's logic
Open Source Licensing: Developers release smart contract code with an open-source license (MIT License, GNU General Public License, Apache License 2.0), which protects copyright but allows usage according to certain terms.
Encumbered Deployment: Posting the compiled contract on blockchain without publishing the source code, maintaining copyright but allowing execution on blockchain
Patent Eligibility of Smart Contracts
Can smart contracts be patented?
The patents that cover innovations in smart contracts generally contain the following:
Systems and methods for executing specific contract logic on blockchain infrastructure
Algorithms for performing specific financial actions (Automated Market Makers, Yield Farming Optimization, Liquidation Prevention)
Technical solutions to the issues with the blockchain infrastructure (sharding, acceleration of consensus, scalability)
Patent Eligibility Questions:
Smart contract patents are also challenged in terms of patent eligibility under the Alice/Mayo test (explained earlier in the section). Abstract financial concepts implemented via smart contracts are not eligible. Technological innovations (new specific implementations, data structures, and technical effects) are eligible.
Protectable Smart Contract Innovations:
The present invention provides an approach to performing atomic exchanges between various blockchain networks, which overcomes the technical issue of atomicity in inter-chain transactions.
A method for detecting and preventing front-running attacks on transactions in a blockchain using novel cryptographic commitments
Consensus algorithm for blockchain networks that cuts down on energy consumption by a certain algorithmic innovation
Non-Patentable Smart Contract Concepts
Abstract financial instruments (options, futures, derivatives) using smart contracts with no new technical solutions
Methods for conducting business in the execution of transactions that do not involve any specific technical innovation:
Algorithms related to finance, but without relation to particular technical problems
Jurisdictional Fragmentation & Enforcement Difficulties
The key issue in Web3 IP: While smart contracts run worldwide on a blockchain, intellectual property protection is geographically limited.
Jurisdictional M
Ethereum-based smart contracts run in the same manner in the US, the EU, Singapore, the UAE, and other countries. If the smart contract infringes patents or other intellectual property rights:
Which courts have jurisdiction?
What are the applicable laws?
How is infringement established when execution is divided between global blockchain nodes?
But what if the contract is immutable and decentralized?
In that case, the remedies that may be applied to the
Legal Fragmentation Response:
Blockchain-related projects provide solutions to the issue of jurisdictional uncertainty
DAO Inc.: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), in which the governance is carried out through the decisions of the token holders, incorporate in particular countries (Delaware, Singapore, Cayman Islands) in order to attain legal entity status and have a clear jurisdictional anchor.
Smart Contract Licensing: Smart contracts that carry licenses specifying usage and geographically restricting the deployment of licenses.
Off-Chain Dispute Resolution: Disputes which may arise out of the execution of a smart contract are settled via traditional arbitration (via arbitration services such as Kleros for decentralized arbitration)
Hybrid Governance: DAOs have legal entities that exist outside of the blockchain and interact with on-chain governance, resulting in decentralized execution and legal jurisdiction for enforcement
IP Rights in NFTs and Digital Assets
Non-Fungible Tokens are virtual tokens used to denote unique assets on blockchains. IP issues arise in relation to ownership of NFTs
Is the owner of the NFT also the owner of the copyright underlying the digital asset?
Can a person enforce IP rights against an NFT holder?
How are patents and trademarks relevant to NFT trading platforms?
IP Rights in NFTs:
An example of an NFT smart contract that can include terms related to intellectual property licensing is
Copyright Rights: The NFT may contain a clause stating if a copyright right or a non-exclusive display licensing right is transferred to the buyer.
Commercial Rights in Smart Contracts: Smart contracts may include provisions to restrict the commercial use of the asset by the NFT owner, thus maintaining the commercial intellectual property right of the creator.
Derivative Works: Smart contracts may require royalties in case the owner of the NFT creates a derivative work based on the underlying asset
Innovators IP Strategy for Web3 IP:
Comprehensive smart contract auditing for IP compliance—to protect against the use of smart contracts that violate patents, trademarks, or trade secrets.
IP licensing embedded in smart contracts that automatically enforce IP restrictions in relation to blockchain transactions
Cross-jurisdictional protection of Web3 innovations via registration of patents, trademarks, and copyrights despite the decentralized nature of
The legal structuring of a DAO for the purpose of creating jurisdictional anchors for IP enforcement
Integrated Strategic Framework for Delivering IP Strategy Scaled-Up
Portfolio orchestration and kinetic IP infrastructure
Innovators IP's business model weaves together all service types: patent, trademark, copyright, FTO analysis, and litigation, into a coordinated IP strategy infrastructure.
Portfolio Orchestration
Instead of treating patents, trademarks, and copyrights as separate assets to manage, Innovators IP approaches IP as a portfolio asset: interrelated sets of assets that generate compound advantage.
Company IP Strategy: A firm working on a technology for discovering drugs adopts a comprehensive intellectual property strategy:
Patent Portfolio: General patents on the architecture of the system (licensable)
The method patents related to drug discovery processes utilizing the (for protecting against infringement claims by other companies)
Continuation applications with narrowed-down claims (litigation durability)
Trade Secret Protection: Selection of training data procedures (not in patents)
Algorithm optimization parameters ( Confidential )
Validation datasets (confidential to avoid competitive benchmarking)
Trademark Protection: Trademark protection for the system brand (Madrid Protocol filings for target markets)
Trademark registration for Consulting and Drug Discovery services
Protection of Copyright: Registering source code for the implementation of software
Documentation and technical manuals
Documentation is the
Freedom to Operate: Analysis of FTO to determine blocking patents owned by competitors
Negotiating licenses to acquire the basic technologies
Design-arounds: Alternatives if blocking patents cannot be licensed
Design-arounds
Enforcement Strategy: Tracking Competitor's Products for Infringement
Selective enforcement of patents for creating licensing leverage
Litigation readiness in high-value enforcement situations
Such an approach enables the creation of portfolio synergy because each of the different types of IP assets builds upon or enhances other assets to produce barriers to competition that are more valuable than the assets alone.
Conclusion: Kinetic IP as Competitive Infrastructure
Intellectual property, when effectively utilized, goes beyond mere legal requirements. Intellectual property turns into kinetic infrastructure: dynamic systems for market exclusion, licensing, and competitive intelligence that propel corporate strategy. The mandate of Innovators IP is to implement this philosophy in achieving success for their clients.
Founded in 2020, with offices based at the Amman Hub, the practice focuses on aggressive and technically complex IP strategies for high-tech firms operating in a complex global marketplace. It not only "files patents" and "registers trademarks." It uses market-exclusion engineering, practices freedom-to-operate dominance, implements algorithms of transparency, and traverses the biotechnology patent jungle with accuracy and finesse.
For clients in the field of biotech, fintech, or other technology-intensive industries, the technical partner in the IP war in the age of algorithmic competition is Innovators IP.
InnovatorsIP