Nicola McNeely

IP rights are intangible assets which can be incredibly valuable. If you protect them in the right way, they can not only improve your asset base but they can also be a tradable asset and also a protection for your business from competitors and imitators. If you ever need to enforce them, at least you have the option available to you and sometimes you may be able to obtain litigation funding to fund your claim.

The market is emerging quickly and there are not many real-world examples of blockchain for enterprise being developed and implemented already. It will take time for the market to normalise (as is always the case with adoption of any new technology) but one of the biggest hurdles to mass adoption is interoperability of blockchains. Without this, it is very difficult to create one consensus view across an entire market or industry. The other big hurdle is legal and regulatory compliance. The regulators (including the FCA in the UK and the SEC in the US) are making positive steps to provide accurate guidance and advice to businesses so we have a framework within which businesses can now safely operate.

Every commercial contract is different as every commercial situation is different. So long as we fully understand what you are doing, the contracts can be finalised quickly, but often the discussion process raises questions, opportunities and challenges, and the parties to the contract need to finalise the commercial terms too. But we will do whatever we can to work with your timelines.