Blockchain Technology in Slovenia Blockchain Technology in IP

DR. Špela Stres. MBA, Master of Law, Patent Attorney, CLP

Potential applications of blockchain technology

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

2. Blockchain Technology in Slovenia

• Slovenia is the second in the world in the terms of the number of internet searches of the acronym ICO (Initial Coin Offering), preceded only by Singapore (source: Google Analytics)

• Slovenia‘s Bitcoin scene is the second largest in Europe based on Google search queries

• Slovenia is the country with the highest market capitalization per capita of blockchain projects

• Slovenia is the country with an average 14,5 blockchain companies per million inhabitants (highest in Europe) - conservative estimate assuming 30 – 50 such companies currently operating in Slovenia

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• The most significant EU blockchain companies originate from blockchain friendly Slovenia‘s capital Ljubljana, including ICONOMI, Cofound.it, Bitstamp, Viberate, InsurePal, Eligma, SunContract, Netis and others.

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

• The Blockchain ecosystem in Slovenia has been established consisting of three main pillars:

• Legal/policy pillar

• Supporting environment for development of blockchain

• Business pillar with the developed blockchain companies and blockchain startup companies in it

• Three main pillars are implemented through Blockchain Think Tank initiative on the national level (as a part of Digital Slovenia Initiative, through the cooperation of the Government, Academia and research institutes, businesses and projects)

• The government seeks to explore the technology of the distributed ledger, both at the country

level and as part of international groups; it is included in the digitalization plan of the country

called Digital Slovenia 2020 as a separate initiative of Blockchain Slovenia.

• The well-established communication between the blockchain community and the officials of the

country may become a key factor of turning Slovenia into a global blockchain destination.

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

• One more distinctive feature of the development of the blockchain technology in

Slovenia is close cooperation between companies that established an economic-interest

alliance called Blockchain Alliance CEE.

• Blockchain Alliance Europe (with its founders and headquarter in Slovenia) is a non-profit

organization that connects European companies and legal entities that use or implement

blockchain technologies.

• The Blockchain Alliance Europe will be a key player in the process of creating a setting that will transform Slovenia and Europe into a global blockchain destination

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3. Blockchain Community in Slovenia – Pioneers and Breakthrough Companies of the Blockchain Industry

3.1 ICONOMI (https://www.iconomi.net/digital-assets)

• ICONOMI is a fintech start-up company, developing a blockchain-based ICONOMI digital asset

management platform for the distributed economy

• ICONOMI is the first and currently the only platform where four generations of digital assets are

available. Going beyond Bitcoin (first generation), alt-coins (second generation) and application tokens

(third generation) - the Digital Assets Arrays™ (DAA) represent the fourth generation, one that

combines the properties of all underlying digital assets.

• The digital assets are the foundation of the new economy. They represent stakes in services like

prediction markets, micro-payments, smart contracts, remittance, games, distributed computing and

others.

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://www.iconomi.net/about (co-founders, management team,

staff)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.2 Cofound-it (https://cofound.it/)

• A distributed Venture Capital ecosystem for the future

• A platform to crowdsell promising startup blockchain projects

• Cofound.it has already crowdsold five blockchain projects that have raised a total of approximately $50 million.

• Funds raised: 56,565 ETH (21,018,573 EUR)

• In June 2017, Cofound.it “white-listed” 3,000 subscribers for a pre-sale that raised $14.8 million in 60 hours.

That broke the world record for the largest pre-sale, and eliminated the need for an ICO. Acting much like an

online accelerator in just a few months,

• Token Symbol: VIB

• Team size: 50

• In 2017, they had a turnover of €4.35 million, of which a profit of 2.5 million

• Slovene origin of the initiative: Zenel Batagelj is Co-Founder and Head of Team Strategy at Cofound.it https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/op-ed-slovenia-primed-become-blockchain-haven/; developers and management team https://cofound.it/team/

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.3 Viberate (https://www.viberate.com/)

• Viberate is a crowdsourced live music ecosystem and a blockchain-based marketplace, where musicians are matched with booking agencies and event organizers. We're listing profiles of over 300,000 artists, 2,000 booking agencies, 90,000 venues and 500,000 events.

• The biggest curated live music database in the world

• A decentralized community-based service, fueled by the Viberate token (VIB)

• Funds raised: 50,000 ETH (20,7M EUR) in just 4 minutes and 42 seconds

• Token Symbol: VIB

• Team size: 50

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://www.viberate.io/en/team (co-founders, management

team, staff)

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FUNDS RAISED 35,000 ETH ($10,7M)

PRODUCTWWW.VIBERATE.COM

TOKEN SYMBOL VIB

TEAM SIZE 50

FUNDS RAISED 35,000 ETH ($10,7M)

PRODUCTWWW.VIBERATE.COM

TOKEN SYMBOL VIB

TEAM SIZE 50

Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.4 InsurePal (https://insurepal.io/)

• A next generation of peer-to-peer insurance based on social proof endorsements, fully harnessing the power of blockchain innovation.

• InsurePal aims to become a first-of-a-kind blockchain-based decentralized insurance platform powered by social proof guarantee to members of the crypto community when transacting products and services.

• This is the first time InsurePal has successfully reinvented the social proof for insurance industry. The innovative approach has been filed for patent protection in US and worldwide.

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://insurepal.io/team (co-founders, management team)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.5 Bitstamp (https://www.bitstamp.net/)

• Bitstamp is a bitcoin exchange based in Luxembourg. It allows trading between USD currency and bitcoin cryptocurrency. It allows USD, EUR, bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ripple or bitcoin cash deposits and withdrawals.

• The company was founded as a European-focused alternative to then-dominant bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. While the company trades in US dollars, it accepts fiat money deposits for free only via the European Union's Single Euro Payments Area, a mechanism for transferring money between European bank accounts.[1] Deposits via credit cards or wires incur a fee

• Bitstamp offers an API to allow clients to use custom software to access and control their accounts

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/ (management team)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.6 SunContract (https://suncontract.org/)

• SunContract disrupts the energy sector with a new business model, supported by the blockchain technology . Blockchain takes over the role of the middle man as a technology infrastructure, which can be trusted by default since any and all transactions on the blockchain are peerto-peer reviewable.

• SunContract is a platform that directly connects electricity producers and consumers into an electricity pool based on smart contracts, which is a new, exciting and positive approach toward peer to peer electricity trading.

• Blockchain is seen as a new tech super power here, a way to accelerate national green and innovative initiatives.

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://suncontract.org/tokensale/index.html (co-founders,

management team, staff)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.7 DataFund (https://datafund.io/)

• Datafund is a protocol that guards personal data, provides safe storage and enables ethical data exchange. Individuals create their own datafund to reclaim, own and manage their data.

• Datafund is a new form of personal data oracle and a data market where organizations are incentivised to give data back to individuals and to participate in a fair and ethical exchange of data value. Contributors to a specific datafund are rewarded with intrinsic tokens of a receiving datafund.

• Datafund project is a protocol and a distributed application (dApp) that guards personal data, provides safe storage and enables provable personal data exchange. Information is shared anonymized or on a need-to-know basis according to an agreement between exchanging parties.

• As Datafund is a European based project (with global ambitions), it will be compliant with a new regulative in the EU that protects individuals — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://datafund.io/ (team: co-founders, management team, staff)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

3.8 Others

• Netis blockchain technologies (https://www.netis.si/) - transforming big blockchain ideas into a

game-changing reality

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://www.netis.si/ (team: co-founders, management team,

staff)

• SPARTAN SOLUTIONS (http://www.spartan.si/) - develops partial and full ecosystems for

supporting blockchain based projects

• ELIGMA (https://www.eligma.io/) - AI-driven and blockchain-based cognitive commerce

platform

• Funds raised: 13.178 ETH = 5 mio EUR

• Token Symbol: ELI

• Team size: 20

• Slovene origin of the initiative: https://www.eligma.io/#founders/ (team: co-founders,

management team, staff)

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

4. Blockchain Technology in IP

• Blockchain is an attractive prospect to a IP sector with its relatively low cost of maintenance, increased transparency, lessened administrative burden and resilience to fraud.

• IP registries

• One of the most obvious applications of blockchain technology is as a registry of IP rights, to catalogue and store original works.

• Using blockchain as an IP registry may help give clarity to copyright authors, owners and users.

• By registering their works to a blockchain, authors could end up with tamper-proof evidence of ownership.

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Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

• Micropayments and licensing using smart contracts • One useful feature of blockchain is smart contracts, which could assist in the

sale and licensing of intellectual property. A smart contract is basically a computer program code which has the ability to facilitate, execute and enforce a contract by itself. The terms of the contract are pre-programmed, so that the parties can do business without the administrative burden and cost. For example, in IP, this could mean that licences are self-executing upon use of a work.

• Smart contracts can also be tied into micropayments for use of content. This would work by the author assigning a Bitcoin address to a work, which then allows a potential user to make a small payment to the author in return for this use. As a result, the author can be remunerated without having to pay the high transactions costs of existing financial networks. Such a method is simpler and more transparent than many other existing means of payment for authors. 16

Blockchain Technology in Slovenia and in IP

• Support and IP registries: • There is a clear interest from administration and Slovenian companies to

pursue the benefits of the blockchain technology

• The case presented, Viberate, shows that IP protection in music industry is possible due to a huge database of authors/artists and (more or less) standardized licensing contracts to booking agencies, venues and events

• The more complex IP registries and licensing agreement based on the patents presents an interesting option to be explored; the main limitations are the complexity of program code (e.g. not standardized licensing agreements) and support of involved organizations (patent offices, general legislative environment)

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Thank You! Spela.Stres@ijs.si