In a nutshell
Obtain electronic proof of date for your creations, or for the content of all document types, including laboratory notebooks or negotiation documents and recordings for 1 Euro from Ipside using Blockchain technology.
Why would one need to date a creation?
Most often, during intellectual property (patent, brand, copyright, etc.) litigation procedures, there comes a moment when one or both of the litigating parties must provide proof of date of the documents claiming authorship of an idea, invention, graphical creation, etc.
Proof of date is thus used to establish the anteriority of a creation and, for example, the anteriority of a development relative to a subsequent patent filing (prior personal ownership). It is used to formally prove the dates and content of the various steps in the development of a creation.
In the past, proofs of date were usually obtained by submission of a “Soleau envelope” to INPI, or of sealed envelopes to a bailiff.
Electronic time-stamping now offers a much simpler and faster means.
Data time-stamping can constitute proof of creation date
Time-stamping consists in associating a date and time with an event, information or electronic datum. It is generally used to record the instant at which an operation was performed. For Ipside, time-stamping consists, amongst others, in assigning a date and time to a document, without altering this latter.
Online Blockchain data time-stamping: technical definition
To indisputably date your laboratory notebooks, graphical or artistic creation, you can now use a new IPSIDE service: online Blockchain data time-stamping. According to the Blockchain France website page defining blockchain, “...a blockchain constitutes a database containing the history of all exchanges made between its users since its creation. This database is secure and distributed: it is shared by its various users, with no intermediaries, thus enabling each user to verify chain validity.” For further information, we recommend that you read the excellent Wikipedia Blockchain page.
Each time a new datum is inserted into the chain, a signature characterizing all previous blockchain records is used to perform this insertion, thus preventing all previous chain records from being changed. The chain cannot be falsified.
This online proof of date creation service allows you to insert into the Bitcoin chain (the most widely known blockchain, but not the only one), not your files themselves (due to their probable size of a few megabytes to several hundred megabytes), but rather a signature representing all the files you wish to time- stamp. This signature is unique (technically, it is a hash of the file, see the definition of file hashing on Wikipedia), it characterizes your file (or group of files) and its insertion into the Bitcoin chain assigns it a firm and unfalsifiable date. Changing a single character or pixel in one of your files will completely change the hash signature. This signature is thus unique to each file.
Simply knowing the hash signature, however, is not sufficient to reconstitute the file. Counterfeiters cannot infer anything from the knowledge of a hash signature, which is simply a digital file, itself meaningless and unusable.
How does it work in practice?
If you wish to obtain proof of date for a file such as a laboratory notebook, software source code, graphical illustration, or any other creation that exists in the form of a digital file (including model photos), simply drag-and-drop your digital files, whatever their format (jpeg, .txt, .pdf, .raw, etc.) onto a specific area of a page on the Ipside website (in your online customer space). Without transferring these files to Ipside, their hash signature is generated and sent for insertion into the Bitcoin chain.
Ipside does not receive your files to be time-stamped, it thus does not store them or have access to their content. Only the server on which our web application is hosted temporarily receives your files via HTTPS transfer protocol in order to generate a signature.
Ideally, we advise our customers using this online proof of date system to “zip” their files, with encryption, to a new file before submitting it for time-stamping. Within approximately 24 hours, you will receive the Bitcoin certificate confirming the insertion of your hash signature into the chain. Simply keep this certificate, along with your zipped file, in a secure archive location within your company or at home.
Ipside provides you with secure access to these certificates, at any time, via your secure online portfolio. As mentioned above however, we do not keep the zipped file that you time-stamped, you must keep it yourself.
As the Bitcoin technology is very widespread, it is possible to retrospectively check the date of chain insertion into the blockchain via a large number of independent Ipside providers. In this manner, you can definitively prove that your zipped file’s hash signature was inserted at a defined time. As long as you keep your zipped file safe, you can demonstrate that hashing it produces an identical hash signature as that inserted into the Bitcoin chain. You have proof of date for your graphical creation, laboratory notebook, model, drawing, text, etc.
How much does it cost?
This service costs 1 Euro excluding VAT per file time-stamping operation. That’s all. This is 15x less than a Soleau envelope, while being must faster.
Considering that it would be beneficial for your company to implement systematic use of this service each time there is a new breakthrough in your creations, Ipside offers packs of 100 or 500 data time-stamps.
All first-time customers are offered a pack of 10 free time-stamps to allow them to test the service. Simply ask your Ipside contact. This service is then available via your online customer portfolio, combining all of your patents and their related up-to-date data (see below).
This blockchain data time-stamping service is also available from the ipipip.fr website, whose role is to centralize all online industrial property operations.
Your online portfolio of industrial property titles
Industrial property titles are a key asset for your company. Ipside allows you to access, at any time, the status of your portfolio of patents, brands and other IP titles and related information. Obviously, customers can only access their own titles.
This online portfolio service combines the following functions:
For patents
List of patents (patent families, patents, Soleau envelopes)
Multiple search criteria
For each patent:
Title in French and English,
Customer reference and Ipside reference, Filing number,
Inventors’ names, Date filed,
Date published, Date issued. Patent figure 1
Abstract
Claims
Links to the text source document in pdf format
Hypertext link to the relevant office site, with direct access to the patent procedure file
Patent status (active, abandoned, revoked, expired) Geographical territory covered
Christophe CORNUEJOLS
Industrial Property
Consultant
IPSIDE Chief
Executive Officer