Here is the full transcript and summary of Kary Oberbrunner’s talk titled “Blockchain: The Future of Intellectual Property Protection” at TEDxOshkosh conference.
In this TEDx talk, author Kary Oberbrunner discusses the importance of protecting intellectual property in today’s economy, where intangible assets account for 90% of the S&P 500. Unfortunately, the high costs and long wait times associated with traditional methods like patents make it challenging for creators to protect their ideas.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
In 2010, I did the scariest thing up until that point in my life. I published a book about my past struggle with depression and self-injury. I was a pastor at the time. I had a salary with a safe job and benefits, but I felt like it was time to help people in a bigger way.
And so, I was about to reveal my deepest secret. I had no idea if people would reject me or would I even lose my job. Surprisingly, something amazing started to happen. My story began helping people all around the world who struggled with the same things I did.
But one morning, I woke up a few months later and, get this, through a series of random Google alerts, I discovered a guy that I didn’t even know had stolen my story. He had literally, word for word, taken my idea, claimed it as his own, and set himself up as the creator. He even started a speaking career based on the concept. I couldn’t believe it.
Besides feeling like he had stolen my intellectual property, I feel like he also had stolen a part of me. What about you? Has anyone ever stolen your idea? If not, imagine late nights, long meetings; you put everything on the line, even your reputation. You want to help people, you want to solve a problem, but then someone comes in and snatches your idea. They kidnap it. They begin selling it again and again for money. This idea that you birthed into the world.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the worldwide sale of counterfeit and pirated goods, get this, it totals between 1.7 and 4.5 trillion dollars annually. It happens every single day and it’s a huge, huge problem. And sadly, it doesn’t just affect the people whose ideas get stolen, it actually affects all of us. Because anytime someone steals intellectual property, the rest of us no longer want to create ideas.
Now, I believe ideas are powerful. I believe they can change the world. This is why one year after sharing my scary story, I took the leap. I left my day job and I started down the path of creating a publishing company.
This became my life’s mission, Igniting Souls by setting free world-changing ideas. And so, over the last decade, our team has been able to help over 1,000 authors bring their ideas to life. And in my other role, the chair of a department of entrepreneurship at a university, it’s the coolest job. I get to help young people launch their inventions into the world. I think their ideas are worth protecting. Why? Because intellectual property, known as IP, it has value. Just like physical property.
Think about physical property for a moment. We care for it. We protect it. This is why we lock our doors and why we mow our lawns. Because we recognize that it has value. Do you realize that your ideas have value too? And therefore, they need to be cared for and protected just like physical property. But here’s the thing.
Many times we don’t know how to protect and that’s a problem because the bar is really, really high. Now, in my parents’ and grandparents’ day, in your parents’ and grandparents’ day, the assets that held the most value, they were tangible. In fact, if you look at the screen, in 1975, 83% of the assets of the S&P 500, which make up the 500 largest, most valuable brands in the U.S., 83% were things you can taste, touch, feel tangible. But times have changed.
Look now, in 2020, it’s massively shifted. Now, only 10% of the S&P 500 is tangible. The other 90% are ideas. This means that if you have a smartphone, hold that thing up for a moment. Only 10% of the value is in the parts and pieces. The other 90% is in the IP or the intellectual property.
But here is the problem. Traditional ways of protecting intellectual property are very expensive and it costs a lot of time and money. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, these things are not easy to do. In fact, if you had an idea today and you wanted to protect that with a patent, think about what you’d have to do. You’d have to file an application, pay $20,000, and wait one to three years. And after you filed it, your patent would have an 88% chance of being rejected.
So if you wanted to go a second round, you’d have to pay more time and more money. This is very discouraging for a lot of creative people. And so they figure that the bar for protecting their ideas is way too high.
So what happens to ideas facing this much friction? Well, sadly, most ideas never see the light of day. They die a sad death. Now, we marvel at all the ideas humanity has created, like electricity, sound, the internet. But what about the millions of ideas that never get protected because the bar is too high?
This is not some horror story for a frustrated inventor. This is the sad reality for anyone who wants to protect their ideas. So a few years ago, I asked a question. I said, “What if we could think of an idea and then, abracadabra, what if we could protect that idea immediately?” Not over one to three years or $20,000. Well, guess what?
That fictional question has become a factual technology. Thanks to blockchain, there’s a new way of protecting IP that’s faster, easier, and cheaper.
Blockchain is a public digital ledger. Think of it as a distributed record that everyone can see on any device in the whole world, but nobody can edit it. And what this does is it allows blockchain to open up a new world where ideas are like a new renaissance. And we become creators again.
And these ideas make our lives easier and our planet better. And we need it now more than ever because ideas are emerging at a faster rate than ever before. Think about this for a moment. Technology, according to Moore’s law, it doubles every 18 months. And knowledge, it’s exploding.
Knowledge used to double every 1000 years. But according to IBM, it’s projected now to double every 12 hours. That is incredible. And that tells me that we better solve this issue very quickly. So here’s the coolest thing. Blockchain, the more I explored it, the more it provided all the solutions we need. Think about it.
It’s easier. It’s faster, certainly cheaper. But it also solves the timing question. In fact, all intellectual property is based on time. This is why I don’t own the Golden Arches. I wasn’t around in 1962 to protect them. But blockchain solves the timing question. And here’s why.
When you take your idea and you put it on the blockchain, it creates a digital asset. And that digital asset is timestamped, which means that nobody can ever change the exact record of the second it was created. It’s a big fancy word, immutable. Nobody can change it.
If a bad actor wanted to come and say, “Hey, I want to falsely claim ownership and cut you,” they’d have to hack 51% of the computers in the world and keep hacking it so as to go undetected. And if you’re worried, “Well, what if I put my idea in the blockchain? Can’t someone steal it?” You can actually hide the smart contracts and only produce it in a court of law if you need to prove ownership.
Blockchain-protected IP opens up a whole new world for all of us. Now we can each get in the game and play and create. In fact, it reminds me of one of my favorite stories. This story is true. It happened in 2006. It’s the American Society of Landscape Architects. Here’s what they did. They said, “Let’s study the behavior of children.”
So they asked the preschool teacher, “Hey, can you take your kids to a very, very busy city?” In these two playgrounds, they’re exactly the same except for one thing. The first playground has no fence. But the second playground has a fence around it. And then they watched the kids.
You know what happened? In that first playground with no fence, nothing happened. The preschool kids were freaked out. They ran and hid right by the teacher because they didn’t know where the boundaries were. They didn’t want to risk venturing out and exploring and having fun.
But in that other playground, the one with the fence, guess what happened? The kids did what kids do. They went back and forth on the swing. They climbed up and down the slide. They had an absolute blast because of the security around the playground. I love that story.
I love it because we’re all kids on the playground of life. We were all designed to create ideas with the safety and freedom to explore. And blockchain protection is the new fence. It’s the new fence that tells people, “You can’t just come in here and take my idea.” A boundary exists. It gives people incentive to invent things.
In fact, our legal system grants rights to creators because they know that we all benefit when someone creates an idea. But the height of the fence matters. If the fence is too low, no one wants to create because they feel like someone will come in and snatch their idea. But if the fence is too high, like with patents, where you have to wait one to three years or pay $20,000, they don’t want to create either.
Similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we need one that’s not too high, not too low, but it’s just right. And blockchain is the perfect solution and the perfect height. For far too long, we’ve had too much friction in the world of intellectual property. Anytime an industry is fraught with friction, disruption is sure to follow. Look at Airbnb and look at DoorDash. Airbnb disrupted the hotel industry.
DoorDash disrupted the food industry. Get this, we are on the Uber breakthrough moments of intellectual property protection. All thanks to blockchain. Let me close with one word. I often said it on the playground of life. Maybe you said it too. “Abracadabra.” Do you know what it means? It means “I create as I speak.” It came to pass as it was spoken.
Thanks to this new easy IP protection, we can go back to where we were like kids, where we created as we spoke. We no longer have to hope that our ideas are protected. We no longer have to spend $20,000 or wait one to three years. Instead, we can create as we speak and protect those ideas immediately. Welcome to blockchain, the future of intellectual property protection. Abracadabra!
Kary Oberbrunner’s talk, “Blockchain: The Future of Intellectual Property Protection,” offers insightful perspectives on the evolution and challenges of protecting intellectual property (IP) in the modern world. Here are the key takeaways:
Personal Experience with Intellectual Property Theft: Oberbrunner begins by sharing his own experience of having his story plagiarized. This personal story underscores the emotional and professional impact of IP theft.
Magnitude of the Problem: He highlights the extensive global issue of counterfeit and pirated goods, emphasizing the significant financial implications and the discouraging effect it has on creators.
Shift in Asset Value: Oberbrunner points out the dramatic shift from tangible to intangible assets. He notes that in 1975, tangible assets constituted 83% of the S&P 500’s value, but by 2020, 90% of this value was in intangible assets, primarily intellectual property.
Challenges of Traditional IP Protection: He discusses the high costs, long waiting times, and high rejection rates associated with traditional methods of protecting intellectual property, such as patents and copyrights.
Impact of Blockchain on IP Protection: Oberbrunner introduces blockchain as a groundbreaking solution for IP protection. Blockchain’s attributes—being a distributed, immutable ledger—make it an ideal tool for establishing and proving ownership of ideas quickly, easily, and inexpensively.
Immutability and Security of Blockchain: The immutable nature of blockchain ensures that once an idea is recorded, its creation date and details cannot be altered, providing a secure method of establishing ownership.
Accessibility and Efficiency: Blockchain technology democratizes the process of IP protection, making it more accessible and less intimidating for creators. This system reduces the friction and barriers that currently discourage many from protecting their ideas.
The Analogy of Playgrounds: Oberbrunner uses the analogy of children in playgrounds—with and without fences—to illustrate the importance of having clear, secure boundaries for IP. Just as children feel safe to explore within a fenced playground, creators need the security of effective IP protection to innovate freely.
Optimal Balance in IP Protection: He stresses the need for an IP protection system that is neither too restrictive nor too lax. Blockchain offers a ‘just right’ solution akin to Goldilocks’ preference, encouraging creation without overburdening creators.
Potential for Disruption and Innovation: Oberbrunner likens the advent of blockchain in IP protection to the disruptive innovations of Airbnb and DoorDash in their respective industries, suggesting that blockchain could similarly revolutionize IP protection.
Empowering Creators: With blockchain, creators can protect their ideas immediately and cost-effectively, returning to a state of creative freedom and spontaneity akin to childhood, where ideas can be protected as soon as they are conceived.
Conclusion – Abracadabra: Oberbrunner concludes with the word “abracadabra,” symbolizing the power of creation and speech, which blockchain enables by allowing immediate protection of ideas, thereby heralding a new era in intellectual property protection.