In July of 2017 Goldman Sachs was granted a patent “Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement.” This patent describes a method for using their own cryptocurrency, SETLcoin, to trade securities on the blockchain.
Goldman Sachs’ patent does not appear to mark the beginning of a blockchain campaign, nor appear to have spurred a flurry of patents among the other regulated financial institutions. Instead, the importance of this securities settlement patent is subtler; it shows that the blockchain is patent-eligible subject matter. Although not the first to ever patent a blockchain method, Goldman Sachs was the most visible and woke people up to the possibility.
After Alice, a landmark Supreme Court case, the future of software patents seemed to have been in doubt. The Supreme Court has provided a few points of guidance since then, but it has often been unclear whether a particular software invention was patentable or not. Goldman Sachs’ patent shows that their particular application is patent-eligible, and can serve as a roadmap to other inventors trying to get through the patent office. The real importance is not in Goldman Sachs’ patent itself, but what it tells us about the changing patent landscape. Now that Goldman Sachs has done the hard work of proving patent-eligibility, the way is open for other inventors to obtain blockchain patents.
