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JPMorgan Files Patent Application On 'Bitcoin Killer'
Velcroman1 writes "Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has filed a patent application for an electronic commerce system that sounds remarkably like Bitcoin — but never mentions the controversial, Internet-only currency. The patent application was filed in early August but made publicly available only at the end of November; it describes a 'method and system for processing Internet payments using the electronic funds transfer network.' The system would allow people to pay bills anonymously over the Internet through an electronic transfer of funds — just like Bitcoin. It would allow for micropayments without processing fees — just like bitcoin. And it could kill off wire transfers through companies like Western Union — just like Bitcoin. There are 18,126 words in the patent application. 'Bitcoin' is not one of them."
It doesn't matter. If the people behind Bitcoin never bothered to file for a patent, JP Morgan is now going to get it first--meaning Bitcoin will then be in violation of said patent (as unfair as that is).
That's not how first-to-file works. If the people behind Bitcoin kept Bitcoin secret, never published anything, never used it publicly, etc., and then (i) JP Morgan filed a patent application on it, and (ii) subsequently the people behind Bitcoin filed a patent application on it, then JP Morgan would win and get the patent - because, given two applications by two different inventors on the same invention, the first-to-file wins (hence the name). This is as opposed to the first-to-invent system, where in the above scenario, Bitcoin would win if they could show lab notebooks and internal documents showing that they actually invented it prior to JP Morgan and were working on reducing it to practice the whole time. Those proceedings were called interferences, and they occurred, on average, about 20 times a year. Out of half a million applications. That's literally all the change to "first to file" means, and those .004% applications are all that were affected. It has nothing to do with what's prior art or whether Bitcoin, which predates JP Morgan's application, can infringe any patent granted from it - and no, it can't. Not unless they change their implementation to incorporate something new that's in the JP Morgan application. If they freeze the implementation here, they can't possibly ever infringe.