Blockchain IP: DAOs Are Innovative—But Will They Be Inventors?

Intellectual property (IP) provides us a front row seat to the cutting-edge of technology. The legal questions arising at this frontier are often as complex as the resulting inventions and creative works. The Federal Circuit’s recent Thaler v. Vidal opinion clarifies an important patent law concept, specifically whether an artificial intelligence (AI) may be listed as the inventor of a patent. The current industrial revolution powered by blockchain and crypto continues to raise issues about how it meshes with our current IP legal framework…. The latest question at the cutting-edge of “who, or what may, be an inventor” begs whether a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a new type of digital blockchain-based organization, can participate in IP-related activities, including the invention, ownership, licensing, and enforcement of patent rights.Read More