WIPO PROOF: An online tamper-proof wallet to record trade secrets and other intellectual assets

On May 27, 2020, WIPO launched a service that would provide evidence of the existence of intellectual assets at a specific point in time. This service appears helpful in situations where the intellectual property, like an invention subject of a patent application, is filed at a later date with the patent office and not on the actual date on which it was concluded. The delay is generally caused due to lack of funds and internal formalities on the owner’s side and then the attorney’s delay in drafting, filing and structuring the applications as per the standards of IP registration. Hence, the date of creation of an intellectual asset can be much before the date of applying for IP registration – meanwhile, chances of losing the intellectual property to a third part exist.

Accordingly, with the WIPO PROOF, the proprietor of the intellectual asset can acquire trusted proof of the existence of the intellectual property much before the date of filing for registration. However, what is important to consider here is that the date of getting WIPO token is not evidence of the date on which the intellectual asset was created or concluded, rather, it is the date on which the proprietor had generated the temper-proof evidence of the existence of intellectual creation at a specific point in time. Hence, WIPO PROOF will help the creator/inventor to easily prove the date of existence or creation of its intellectual property in legal disputes but it cannot be generated for backdates – the actual date of concluding the intellectual asset. This service would not only be helpful for the above-described situation but also it would save the rights in cases of trade secrets, data protection, etc. to prove prior use, existence or knowledge.

To give a little insight into this launch, WIPO PROOF is a globally accessible and highly encoded service to record the intellectual creation digitally as proof of its existence at a specific point in time. This proof can be produced in the legal disputes concerning the date of creation of any intellectual property including, but not limited to, trade secrets, copyrightable work, stage-wise developments in the technology for patenting and data assets. Public notice of the same is accessible here.

Salient features of WIPO PROOF are:
a. WIPO PROOF safeguards any digital file in numeric, image, executable, text or audio-visual forms.
b. WIPO PROOF tokens can be used by creators to prove that they had the original creative work before anyone else. Creative work includes all elements of IP that generally falls within the term “creative work” like music, art, etc. It also includes scientific research data, sequence data in life science or data for training AI models
c. WIPO PROOF safely records trade secrets and provides tamper-proof evidence of its existence.
d. It would help to establish prior existence, prevent misuse and misappropriation by timestamping the digital file creating a digital fingerprint. It can be time-stamped right from the formation of idea to every stage of development until its existence and commercialisation.
e. WIPO does not read the digital file and it is accessible only with the WIPO token.
f. One time fee is paid in the intervals of five years of safeguarding the digital file.

A list of benefits available with WIPO PROOF is accessible here. Further, you can also access the steps to create a WIPO token here and costs related to the same are given here.