In short, Intellectual Property (IP) is the protection of creativity and innovation.

In an age of innovation and creativity, scientific advances, tech developments, trend-setter designs and new business models are radically changing our lives every day. To a large extent, we can thank IP rights and the laws that protect them for this continuous stream of innovation.

A person or company could invest significant time and money in developing a new idea or pursuing a creative endeavour, thus taking a financial risk. To encourage innovation and the sharing of new ideas despite these risks, IP law rewards risk-takers with exclusive rights to use and profit from their creation for a defined period of time.

Most of these rights however are granted on unregistered basis which means that the person seeking to enforce them would first need to prove that it owns them.

There are various types of IP that can apply to an idea, creation, product and information and it is very important protect them to add value to it and prevent potential issues in the future.

Recording, registration and protection gives you exclusive rights to exploit your intellectual property assets and allows you to stop others from using them without your permission.

The main rule to remember for the protection of IP rights is “first in time, first in right”

If your creation is used without your permission and you want to take action against the infringer, you will have to prove that the work was created by you and the date and even possibly the time on which it was created.

For unregistered rights such as copyright, databases, trade-secrets and designs it is therefore very important to keep a record of their development from start to end and accurately document any final version on which you would wish to claim and enforce rights.

Registration is the quickest and easiest way to prove ownership!

Many individuals resort to simple “solutions” such as keeping a home-made record stored in their computer, emailing their work to themselves or even posting it on their website or social media account, as a way of recording the such date and time.

Alternatively, professional artists or companies may use the services of a law firm to certify the document on the date that it was presented to them.

All of the above methods pose two significant risks when it comes to proving ownership:

CONFIDENTIALITY – Publishing your work without prior protection or transferring it to any third-party unencrypted may risk any third-parties being able to access it, leaking it or use it without your authorisation.

CHALLEANGEABLE - Now a days is very easy to alter records or create false records that could potentially show dates and times that are not real or accurate. Most forms of recording and certification are therefore exposed to the risk of being challenged by infringers in order to avoid liability for their actions.

VERIFiSMART takes care of this problem!

VERIFiSMART is based on a zero-knowledge proof framework of blockchain technology that completely guarantees the inalterability, security and traceability of your work.

When you record your work in our platform, we will automatically encrypt it so that only you can access and keep it completely confidential until you are ready to release it to the public.

When you register your work in our platform it is printed in the blockchain, hashed and time stamped. You will receive a certificate that can be used as an unchallengeable proof of the ownership, date and time of creation of your work.

With VERIFiSMART you can create a secured digital trail of records of the evolution of your projects and obtain a certificate to prove ownership of your work.

Once your work is recorded on the blockchain, it’s there for an unlimited period of time. Any one can verify the existence of a registration without accessing any further information other than the owner’s name, and time stamp of such registration.

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