Patent Herds sued BTC miners using their IP on bitcoin

In 2023, a firm Maliki Innovation, a firm acquiting thousands of patents from Blackberry, has sued the main bitcoin mining firms Marathon Digital and Core Scientific to use the Andar Curve Cryptography (ECC) employed by bitcoin blockchain, which claims.

Case against Marathon digital holdings And Original scientist Follow the innovations acquisition In 2023, the communication company and former phone manufacturer, 32,000 “non-core” patents from Blackberry.

Filing state.

The lawsuit claims that the defendants are using ECC-based cryptographic methods covered under the patent to support their bitcoin (BTC) Mining operations.

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Are bitcoin users under threat?

Founder and Managing Attorney Aaron Brogan in Brogan Law said that it is unlikely that such cases will hit most individual bitcoin users, even if patents are found to be valid:

“It is difficult to chase individuals because they are often ‘decision-proofs’, which is for the lawyer jargon.”

On the other hand, there are minerals, rich goals that are eligible for a lawsuit. Brogan said, “These institutions always attract cases because they have money, and the patent bar can try to take it from them.”

If the plaintiff is strong, they will be able to fix the lost royalty of up to six years. It is not easy to calculate the yoga that is translated. Such cases often have a secondary test, “but you can assume that it will be a large amount, and it can cause these defendants to enter bankruptcy,” Brogan said.

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Large -scale results

Brogan also said that winning the case would be a favorable example for Maliki to use in the United States to use other miners in pursuing cases. This, in turn, may have disastrous consequences for bitcoins.

“If they chose to pursue that strategy, it could reduce the safety of the bitcoin network,” he said.

Nevertheless, Brogan argued that Malikis were more likely to try to withdraw a fee until the patent ends instead of the tank of the entire industry. Nico Demchuk, head of legal in Cryptocurrency compliance and forensic firm AMLBOT, told Cointelegraph that it was not possible:

“Maliki’s claim does not appear to be so strong if vocal patents are finished or covered techniques that occur before the ECC implementation of bitcoin. Even if some patents are active, their scope is limited to specific implementation details, not the core ECC algorithm, not the core ECC algorithm,” said. Nevertheless, nothing is certain, he said:

“However, the result depends on the details of the specific patent and the interpretation of their scope of the court.”

This is not the first time that cases related to intellectual property have targeted bitcoin. Bitcoin.org was able to website Repeat a copy of bitcoin white paper a year ago after this Was taken down During the tried to prove the unsuccessful court attempt by Craig Right, during an attempt to prove that he is a sattoshi Nakamototo named Pseudo -Protocol.

Wright has worked hard to claim ownership of major parts of technology behind bitcoin. In two years before 2019, he was 114 blockchain-related patent filed,