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Leaders in the crypto world and legal space have finally taken a stand against the firms and individuals who are identified as “patent trolls” that hinder growth in the Web3 space. 

The members of Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and Unified Patents, an organization aiming to deter bad patent assertions, launched the Blockchain Zone to challenge patents owned by non-practicing entities (NPE), also known as patent trolls, that threaten blockchain and the tech sector. 

The partnership between both firms aims to protect blockchain technologies from “unwarranted and costly assertions” by parties that try to leverage the high cost of patent litigation to drive settlements. COPA will be joining more than 300 companies committed to preventing the patent trolls operations.

Paul Grewal, the Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase and one of the members of COPA, claimed: “Patent trolls are barriers in the path of innovation; they hinder the progress of technology and stifle the spirit of creativity, particularly in the fast-evolving world of cryptocurrency.”

Grewal stated the patent trolls must be stopped to allow “important business" to continue developing the crypto-economy. 

Commenting about the recent partnership, Steve Lee, the Lead at Spiral, stated: “COPA has fought long and hard to reduce barriers to crypto innovation, including its efforts to debunk false IP claims related to Satoshi Nakomoto’s identity, which have plagued the bitcoin community.”

In 2023, it was reported that NPEs were responsible for 58% of all patent litigation cases, which is consistent with the average over the past five years. According to the press release, Unified Patents is the only entity that has never settled with patent trolls so far. 

In this context, patent trolls can be described as a person or company that holds the patents but doesn’t actually produce any products or services based on those patents.