IP dLedger - Decentralized ledger for intellectual property administration

With the rapid growth of big data, the applications of intellectual property (IP) rights and prior art documents are increasing rapidly. Patent examiners are usually overworked to evaluate inventions referring to a large volume of prior arts in a short period. Such increasing workloads and documents may cause administrative inefficiencies and generate low-quality IPs that hamper technological innovation. Moreover, today's centralized IP administration system is inefficient in processing speed, security, and cost. Inefficiencies of IP administration in each national IP office impede speedy and efficient cooperation for international application and registration. This study proposes an IP decentralized ledger (IP dLedger) based on the blockchain to significantly reduce IP administration costs and improve IP use. IP dLedger connects the on-chain (blockchain) to the off-chain (centralized database) systems using IP codes that combine hash values and timestamps. Similar to the web hypertext method, this connective feature of IP dLedger enables users who click on identification information registered in a blockchain network to access, through a hyperlink, a centralized database of enormous volumes of related IP information. Therefore, IP dLedger can reduce IP administration costs, increase IP usage, and facilitate safe and convenient use of the IP data.