Blockchain Patent Attorney

Daniel A. Tysver

For over thirty years, Dan Tysver has been helping clients obtain patents on cutting-edge digital technologies. In the past few years, that has meant protecting software, services, and other technologies that utilize blockchains. Inventions in this area can use blockchains in a variety of ways, but frequently these innovations utilize the public, permanent, and verifiable nature of the blockchain to ensure data integrity.

Dan’s Bitlaw website has provided free information on patent law and intellectual property protection for digital technologies for decades. Recently, Bitlaw has added detailed discussions on blockchain technologies, explaining the basic structure of the blockchain, the functioning of smart contracts and how they relate to legal contracts, and the role of DAOs. Bitlaw also describes some of the complications of trying to sue individuals based on activities on the blockchain. Bitlaw also discusses non-fungible tokens, and in particular the copyright issues that frequently arise in the development and sale of NFTs. Finally, Bitlaw website describes the ability to obtain patents on blockchain-related technologies, include a discussion on the types of inventions that have already been patented in this ares.

Blockchain patents are similar to patents on other digital technologies in that the inventions must be new, useful, and non-obvious (see the Bitlaw discussion on patent requirements). In addition, these types of technology must be considered subject-matter eligible before the patent office will grant a patent. Dan has written extensively on subject matter eligibility (see Bitlaw’s Section 101 Index for more information) and also presented numerous legal seminars explaining the intricacies of this arcane area of the law. The important thing to remember is that, in spite of these issues, blockchain inventions are eligible for patent protection in the United States.

Feel free to contact Dan if you have any questions or if you would like to discuss the patent process with him.

Dan graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, MN, with a major from the Physics and Astronomy department. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Dan studied computer science extensively at Carleton, and continued this at Harvard where he studied artificial intelligence and wrote his third-year paper on “Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning.”

Dan served for ten years as an adjunct professor of Software and Technology Law at the University of St. Thomas Graduate Programs in Software, and previously served as the adjunct professor of patent law at the University of Minnesota Law School. Dan is active in the legal community, having served as the chair of both the Computer Law Section as well as the Internet Law Committee of the bar association.

Dan founded and ran a small boutique patent law firm in Minneapolis for over twenty-five years. He is now a partner in the Forsgren Fisher McCalmont DeMarea Tysver that he helped found in 2021. Dan has been named a Super Lawyer and has previously been honored as a Top 40 IP Attorney by Minnesota Law and Politics.

Over the past twenty-five years, Dan has frequently presented to other attorneys and bar associations on intellectual property law in general, and on blockchain-related technologies in particular. Some recent presentations include:

• • “Disruption in the IP Space – Part I: A Focus on Emerging Technologies,” 2022 Midwest IP Institute (Patent and copyright protection for artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, NFTs, and the metaverse)
  • “Seven Things You Need to Know to be ‘In the Know’ about Cryptocurrency, Blockchains, and Non-Fungible Tokens,” Cryptocurrency in the Practice of Law – Navigating Blockchain and Digital Assets in Minnesota (2022)
  • “Blockchains and the Law–Understanding Smart Contracts, Crypto Currencies, and Non-Fungible Tokens,” New Technology and The Law (2021)
  • “Smart Contracts 101,” 2019 Technology Law Institute