Re:Abstract Ideas Don’t Deserve Patents
by olalonde on Sunday March 30, 2014 @04:14PM
(#7497724)
As an aside, I wonder to what extent trademark laws could be made obsolete through technical means (using cryptography for example). Pfizer could cryptographically sign its labels. The problem is that counterfeiters could still copy labels from existing products. Maybe Pfizer could use a distributed ledger (e.g. Bitcoin) to prove the authenticity of its products?
When Pfizer sells a product to a distributor, said distributor would require Pfizer to send a tiny transaction to their address.
Known Pfizer address associated with product -> Distributor's address
When the distributor sells the product to a retail shop, the retail shop could verify the product's authenticity by requiring the distributor to reveal an address that can be linked up to Pfizer's "known address associated with product".
As part of the purchase process, the retail shop would in turn require the distributor to send a transaction from said address to their address so that they can in turn prove authenticity to their customers and so on. A valid transaction should spend the full amount of the seller's address (e.g. 1 satoshi) so that there is only one possible path from Pfizer's address to the final owner of the product.
Known Pfizer address associated with product -> Distributor's address -> Retailer's address
A product would then be considered counterfeit if a seller is unable to produce the type of transaction described above.
One possible issue with this scheme is that it would still allow an hypothetical scammer to produce a valid transaction (assuming they previously bought the authentic product) and sell a fake product. However, there would be little economic incentive to do so given that their authentic product would now be valued as a fake (since they would have "lost" the ability to prove its authenticity).
Essentially, it would let a scammer buy an authentic product for the price of a fake. Not bad, but it doesn't scale well unless your goal is to acquire a bunch of authentic products for personal use with no intention of reselling. In other words, individual sellers (e.g. on Craigslist) might do it but it wouldn't be practical at a business level.
PS: I think I might just have described "colored coins" in a convoluted way.
When Pfizer sells a product to a distributor, said distributor would require Pfizer to send a tiny transaction to their address.
When the distributor sells the product to a retail shop, the retail shop could verify the product's authenticity by requiring the distributor to reveal an address that can be linked up to Pfizer's "known address associated with product".As part of the purchase process, the retail shop would in turn require the distributor to send a transaction from said address to their address so that they can in turn prove authenticity to their customers and so on. A valid transaction should spend the full amount of the seller's address (e.g. 1 satoshi) so that there is only one possible path from Pfizer's address to the final owner of the product.
A product would then be considered counterfeit if a seller is unable to produce the type of transaction described above.One possible issue with this scheme is that it would still allow an hypothetical scammer to produce a valid transaction (assuming they previously bought the authentic product) and sell a fake product. However, there would be little economic incentive to do so given that their authentic product would now be valued as a fake (since they would have "lost" the ability to prove its authenticity).
Essentially, it would let a scammer buy an authentic product for the price of a fake. Not bad, but it doesn't scale well unless your goal is to acquire a bunch of authentic products for personal use with no intention of reselling. In other words, individual sellers (e.g. on Craigslist) might do it but it wouldn't be practical at a business level.
PS: I think I might just have described "colored coins" in a convoluted way.