The San Francisco-based Bitcoin services Company, Coinbase has filed applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The company has filled for nine Bitcoin-related applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Coinbase is filing for patents for the following applications:
- Hot wallet for holding Bitcoin
- User Private Key Control
- Bitcoin Private Key Splitting for Cold Storage
- Instant Exchange
- Personal Vault
- Send Bitcoin to Email Address
- Bitcoin Exchange
- Tip Button
- Off-Blockchain Transactions in combination with On-Blockchain transactions
And it seems that Coinbase was not the only company applying for crypto-related patents. Amazon had already submitted a request for a bitcoin-related cloud computing patent which was awarded back in 2014. Several fillings have been submitted by other companies such as Mastercard or IBM as well.
The government organization responsible for issuing patents to businesses and investors and registering product or intellectual property trademarks, The US Patent and TradeMark Office received the Company’s submissions early this year on the 17th of March. The request is said to be in pending approval.
A solicitor at a London-based law firm called Sheridans told Coindesk this process can take years:
“The process seeks to establish that the invention is patentable (some things, such as abstract ideas, aren’t patentable). Then the ‘novelty’ of the invention is considered – if the invention was known/or available to the public, it won’t be patentable. It has to be new. If anyone could have come up with that new development, the development is not inventive enough to justify a patent.”
The USPTO process also allows the public to oppose patents if they believe the application in question is not justified. After that the submission will be appreciated by the Patent and TradeMark office who will rule over the fillings.
