Authored by: Jon Gordon
Appeared on Law.com

Can you patent your blockchain? Maybe: fifty blockchain-related patents issued in just the first half of 2018. But how something is inventive can matter as much as whether it is inventive in the first place.

Some inventions can’t be patented. Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, a patent may issue for “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter”. These categories do not span the full range of human ingenuity; for example, they exclude transitory propagating signals.

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