Intellectual-property protection and licensing for cryptocurrency technologies, blockchain innovations, and digital-asset brands, so the technology and the name on it hold their value and can be monetized.
In digital assets, the code is often the easy part to copy. What carries the value is the protectable position around it: the patent, the mark, the trade secret, and the license that says who may use what, and where.
Licensing has two meanings in this practice, and we work on both. The first is the license you grant: an exchange's right to display your mark, a partner's right to run your code, or a counterparty's right to receive your tokens on stated terms. The second is the license you must hold before a business touches customer value, which in the United States means a money-transmitter license in nearly every state and, in a few states, a virtual-currency license on top. The two meet more often than clients expect. The token you license to a partner is the same asset the partner may need a license to hold. We have advised digital-asset clients since 2014, including a licensed money transmitter on a 48-state program, and we read every license with both meanings in view.
We treat IP as a portfolio decision rather than a one-off filing: patent where the invention is novel, trademark to hold the brand, trade secret and contract where disclosure would give the position away, and licensing to turn all of it into revenue and partnerships. Where a matter touches a regulator, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC, the CFTC, and the IRS. In IP work, the job is to protect the innovation while the rest of the digital-asset framework stays clean.
We sort what you have built by the instrument that can hold it. A novel consensus or matching mechanism may support a patent. Code you will never publish is better kept as a trade secret. The name and logo belong in a trademark filing, not only in a domain registration. A protocol built to be forked needs a different plan from an engine that never leaves your servers, and we settle that plan before the code is public.
Speak to this team →Licensing agreements for technology transfer and commercialization, which monetize innovations, establish partnerships, and extend the technology's reach while you retain the underlying IP rights.
Speak to this team →Trademark and copyright protection for cryptocurrency brands, token names, and blockchain platforms that depend on brand recognition and consumer trust to hold market position and stand apart from competitors.
Speak to this team →Technology-transfer planning for cryptocurrency innovations, structured for monetization and market reach, with terms that define scope, field, and territory of use.
Speak to this team →Smart contracts and blockchain applications can carry proprietary algorithms and protocols. We combine trade-secret protection, patent strategy, and contractual safeguards to guard against unauthorized use.
Speak to this team →Patent strategy and prosecution for blockchain innovations that meet the requirements of novelty, non-obviousness, and utility, with attention to the technical difficulty of patenting software-based inventions.
Speak to this team →Drafting, compliance, and enforcement of licensing arrangements, protecting cryptocurrency innovations from unauthorized use and addressing infringement when it surfaces.
Speak to this team →Protection for global digital-asset operations, working across the differing IP laws, patent-prosecution strategies, and enforcement mechanisms of the jurisdictions where the technology is used or commercialized.
Speak to this team →It permits a business to receive value from one person and transmit it to another, to sell stored value or payment instruments, and in many states to hold or exchange virtual currency for customers. It is issued state by state, with a surety bond, a net-worth floor, and examiners who return. Registration with FinCEN as a money services business is a separate federal step. The licenses attach to the entity, and most licensing states must approve a change of control before it closes.
New York has required a BitLicense since 2015 for virtual-currency business activity involving its residents, from transmitting and holding coins to issuing one. It requires a capital reserve, a cybersecurity program, and prior approval before a new coin is listed or a product changes materially. California and Louisiana have adopted statutes of the same design. A business that serves New York residents needs the license, or a limited-purpose trust charter in its place, before the first customer.
The label on the agreement does not decide the question. The test is whether the counterparty pays now and expects a profit from work your team still has to do. A license that delivers tokens to a fund before the network runs, or to a distributor who will resell them to the public, is treated as an offering, and the distributor may be a statutory underwriter. We draft to the substance, so the use right, the price, and the resale restrictions match what the parties intend.
Much protocol code ships under MIT or Apache 2.0, which let anyone copy and sell it so long as the notice travels with it. Apache adds a patent grant from every contributor. GPL and AGPL require derivative code to be published on the same terms, and AGPL triggers when the software runs as a service. A business source license holds commercial use exclusive for a set period, then opens. A permissive release cannot be recalled, so the choice belongs before the first public commit.
Register the token name and logo in the classes that match what you actually sell, and hold them in a foundation or company rather than in the DAO itself, so there is an owner who can sign and sue. Partners who use the mark, from wallets to merchandise makers, should take a written license with a quality-control clause. A license without that control is a naked license, and a naked license can forfeit the mark. The ticker is rarely protectable on its own.
Diligence traces every component back to the company. Founder code written before incorporation needs an assignment into the entity. Employee agreements must assign inventions in the present tense, since a promise to assign later has lost in court. Contractor code needs an express assignment, because work-for-hire rarely covers software from an independent developer. Code funded by a grant or written by a pseudonymous contributor is the usual gap, and it costs less to close before the data room opens than after the price adjusts.
Digital-asset IP sits where traditional intellectual-property law meets emerging blockchain technology, and that intersection is where positions are won or lost. We have advised in the digital-asset space since 2014, and we bring IP, corporate, and tax under one roof so the protection strategy fits the structure around it.
Entity formation, governance, and multi-jurisdictional planning for digital-asset companies, which form the corporate spine that holds the IP and the licenses.
Corporate Structure →Token classification, registration and exemption analysis, and securities-law compliance, read alongside how the technology and brand are protected.
SEC →Offering structure, documentation, and smart-contract review for token sales, where IP protection and the offering itself have to line up.
ICOs →Federal and state frameworks read together into one compliance program, which is the broader regulatory picture around the IP strategy.
Regulatory Compliance →We map what actually exists, from the consensus mechanism and the smart-contract architecture to the token name, the mark, and the repository history. Open-source dependencies get audited first, because a copyleft license buried in the stack can decide what is yours to protect at all.
Patentable protocol innovations are captured before the whitepaper, testnet, or conference talk starts the public-disclosure clock. Trademark applications go out on the token name and brand in the jurisdictions where the project will actually operate.
We draw the line between what stays proprietary and what ships open-source, then paper the grants, from protocol licenses and token-holder terms to technology-transfer and white-label agreements, so every use of the code traces back to a signed right.
Forks, clones, and copycat tokens get monitored and answered, by takedown, negotiation, or enforcement as the economics warrant. Royalty streams and cross-border filings are maintained so the portfolio holds its value through the next raise or acquisition.
A protocol anyone can fork is only owned by the team that papered it first.
Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.