Revolving-door IP specialists lobby for patent-seeking Coinbase

Coinbase contracts with two intellectual property (IP) specializing lobbyists, Ryan Triplette and Sarah Beth Jansen, a result of the rush of many companies like Coinbase to patent blockchain software and mining technologies.

Note that lobbyist Sarah Beth Jansen was involved in the drafting of the PRO-IP Act and the America Invents Act as part of her work with the Senate Judiciary Committee. She also interned with the House Committee on Intellectual Property and Financial Services while in law school. While working on the Senate Judiciary Committee, lobbyist Ryan Triplette worked on intellectual property and civil law reform legislation, crafting and assisting passage of nearly a dozen bills into law.

Coinbase currently holds 3 patents and is waiting on 16 published applications:

• API key generation forming part of a host computer (Pat # 9882715)
• Key ceremony forming part of a host computer (Pat # 9735958)
• Computer system for making a payment using a tip button (Pat # 9436935)'

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• Checkout and payment (Pub # 20180102898)
• Corrective action realignment and feedback system (Pub # 20180082366)
• Self-learning compliance determination (Pub # 20180082188)
• Small sample based training for compliance determination (Pub # 20180082300)
• Investigator interface and override functionality (Pub # 20180082235)
• Multi-factor integrated compliance determination (Pub # 20180082365)
• Security system forming part of a bitcoin host computer (Pub # 20160344543)
• Bitcoin private key splitting for cold storage (Pub # 20150262171)
• Instant exchange (Pub # 20150262168)
• User private key control (Pub # 20150262172)
• Personal vault (Pub # 20150262141)
• Send bitcoin to email address (Pub # 20150262140)
• Off-block chain transactions in combination with on-block chain transactions (Pub # 20150262137)
• Bitcoin exchange (Pub # 20150262139)
• Tip button (Pub # 20150262138)
• Hot wallet for holding bitcoin (Pub # 20150262176)

Though patenting (monopolizing) crypto technology is anathema to its opensource spirit, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong justifies his company's pursuit of these patents by saying, “I’d personally prefer to see a world where software patents don’t exist (I think they hurt innovation, and waste a lot of time/money), but since they do exist, we have to take them seriously... Our ultimate goal in obtaining bitcoin related patents is to keep them out of the hands of bad people, use them defensively to protect Coinbase from patent trolls, and help ensure the bitcoin ecosystem continues to grow.”