DeSci Projects AminoChain and GenoBank Fight Over IP Rights

GenoBank, a firm developing a network for secure medical data sharing, says AminoChain, which is building a similar network, is passing off GenoBank’s technology as its own.

Notably, GenoBank’s claims came the same day AminoChain announced a $5 million seed round raise, in which a16z participated. GenoBank previously sent a cease-and-desist order to the U.S.-based company for infringing its copyrights.

AminoChain and a16z did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Defiant.

Intellectual property rights can fall in a grey area when it comes to blockchain projects. Teams will try to protect their innovations and creations to become profitable in a competitive market while also grappling with the ethos of the cryptocurrency community, which is to build with open-source frameworks where code is shared.

“In our view, AminoChain clearly overlaps with the use of Biosample NFTs,” said Daniel Uribe, CEO and co-founder of GenoBank, a firm with two patents pertaining to BioNFTs and decentralized biobanking technology.

BioNFTs are non-fungible tokens linked to a biological sample, such as a protein chance, amino acid sequence, etc. Uribe told The Defiant that their patents “protect the use of BioNFTs linked to biospecimens,” a technology they spearheaded and which has been granted protection under U.S. law.

Uribe is alleging that AminoChain has passed off GenoBank’s technology and patents as its own without disclosing any information to previous investors. He said that investors should be made aware of the cease-and-desist order from 2023 imposed against Amino Chain for improperly using GenoBank’s BioNFTs.

DeSci Community Debate

The DeSci community is split on who is right.

In the Telegram chat dubbed Blockchain For Science a fiery debate is underway, where Uribe has been catching backlash from fellow members.

“This makes me sad to see,” wrote Omar ElNaggar, CEO and co-founder of Weavechain.

He said a16z’s investment should be celebrated by the sector as one of the most exciting events, but instead, Uribe “tries to spoil the moment with junk that is antithetical to so much of what makes decentralized movements special.”

Others in the chat said that Uribe is, at best, “patent trolling,” and at worst, his patents don’t even apply to what Amino Chain is doing.

Uribe pushed back against the allegations, stating he holds all the legal documentation to defend his company’s technology. His goals, he said, are to resolve the situation as amicably as possible, and even though they remain in a pre-litigation phase, he “will be firm” on protecting their IP.

Francisco Díaz, an anthropologist and researcher building DeSciResearch, mostly sided with Uribe.

“Apparently, what he patented is super foundational because if you can’t get samples and put them on a blockchain [without his permission], then what's the point of DeSci?”

Díaz also said Uribe should be willing to share his company’s technology.

“If you’re a researcher that has an IP that ‘can be shared’ through work and funding, then creating a patent which distributes the income to everybody involved is a pretty great idea,” he said.

That already exists, he pointed out, where people with rare diseases are getting together “in cooperative-style groups” and pooling ideas and funds to work on solutions. 

ElNaggar also agrees and said, “I am a strong supporter of IP rights; I frequently talk about how 'decentralized science' CAN have IP rights, vs. 'open science' which promotes fewer IP rights,” said ElNaggar.

DeSci Is Gaining Steam

According to CoinGecko, the decentralized science sector commands a $519 million market capitalization. However, nearly 50% belongs to Origin Trail, which is building a trusted knowledge infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Only seven other projects exceed a $10 million market cap, which shows how nascent the sector is.

Díaz explained that DeSci aims to make data in science and academia more transparent through a distributed database like a blockchain.

Some of the top projects are Ants-Review, a protocol incentivizing anonymous, open, and on-chain peer reviews; DeSciLabs, which builds infrastructure to “transform scientific publishing,” and Molecule, a firm that sells NFTs about intellectual property to then fund academic projects.