Malikie Innovations, a company that acquired tens of thousands of patents from BlackBerry in 2023, has filed a lawsuit against major Bitcoin mining companies Marathon Digital and Core Scientific, accusing them of using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) technology employed by the Bitcoin blockchain, which the company claims to hold the patent rights for.
The lawsuit against Marathon Digital Holdings and Core Scientific was filed after Malikie Innovations acquired 32,000 "non-core" patents from the communications company and former mobile phone manufacturer BlackBerry in 2023.
"This case focuses on groundbreaking innovations in the field of elliptic curve cryptography, which were recognized and adopted by Bitcoin designers years later," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit claims that the defendants are using ECC-based cryptographic methods (protected by patents held by Malikie) to support their Bitcoin mining operations.
Aaron Brogan, founder and managing attorney of Brogan Law, told Cointelegraph that even if these patents are found to be valid, such lawsuits are unlikely to affect most individual Bitcoin users: "Pursuing individual liability is more complex because they are often 'judgment-proof,' a legal term meaning they are financially insolvent."
In contrast, miners are lucrative targets for lawsuits. Brogan stated, "These entities are always easy targets for litigation because they have assets, and patent attorneys can try to extract those assets from them."
If the plaintiffs win, they could recover up to six years of lost royalties. The specific amount is not easy to calculate. Such cases often lead to secondary trials, "but it can be reasonably speculated that this could amount to a significant sum, potentially leading these defendants to file for bankruptcy," Brogan added.
Brogan also noted that winning this case would create a favorable precedent for Malikie to sue other miners in the U.S. This, in turn, could have catastrophic consequences for Bitcoin.
"If they choose this strategy, it could undermine the security of the Bitcoin network," he said.
However, Brogan believes that Malikie is more likely to attempt to collect fees before the patents expire rather than destroy the entire industry. Niko Demchuk, legal head of cryptocurrency compliance and forensics company AMLBot, told Cointelegraph that this possibility is slim:
"If the claimed patents have expired or the technology covered predates Bitcoin's ECC implementation, Malikie's claims seem less compelling. Even if certain patents remain valid, their scope may be limited to specific implementation details rather than the core ECC algorithm used by Bitcoin," Demchuk stated. However, he added that the outcome still carries uncertainty: "Ultimately, the result depends on the specific details of the claimed patents and the court's interpretation of their scope."
This is not the first intellectual property-related lawsuit targeting Bitcoin. After Craig Wright failed to successfully prove he is the anonymous creator of the protocol, Satoshi Nakamoto, the bitcoin.org website was able to re-upload a copy of the Bitcoin white paper over a year ago, after it had been taken down.
Wright has been struggling to claim ownership of the key technology behind Bitcoin. In the two years leading up to 2019, he filed 114 blockchain-related patents.
Related: James Wyn bets $100 million on Bitcoin (BTC) for the second time, claiming "they are hunting me."
Original: “Bitcoin (BTC) miners sued in U.S. court over cryptographic patents”
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