San Francisco-based financial services company, Square, Inc., is looking to take up the operations of its recently-formed Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) with a new attorney. Per the company’s job description, the attorney will be mostly responsible for managing the operations and executions geared at meeting the association’s mission.
What’s Square COPA?
The core objective for COPA is to democratize patents for crypto companies, ensuring access to more crypto technology. The company said that the “patent lockup” of foundational crypto technologies could stunt innovations and deter mass-adoption in the nascent industry. COPA will enable a shared patent library where members pool their patents and allow each other to access them, on the pledge to never use it against anyone.
Square precisely said in the announcement:
We believe that cryptocurrency’s success depends on the community coming together to build and develop upon existing technologies to innovate, which is not possible when parties tie up foundational technology in patents and litigation.
Square needs a well-rounded attorney
According to the job description, the new position requires an attorney with an Internet Protocol (IP), legal, and business skill. By joining the legal organization, the attorney is expected to possess rich knowledge on judicial, legislative, and industry/community developments on patent pools, and defensive patent aggregation. In addition, The company added that the attorney would be in charge of “all-things crypto within Square’s IP operations.”
Earlier this year, Square bagged a patent for its digital currency payment network, reportedly converts payments from fiat to non-fiat currencies instantly. The financial services company has been working toward the massive adoption of Bitcoin and the crypto industry at large, via its crypto-focused entity, Square Crypto.
As Cryptopolitan reported in January, the crypto company developed its first-ever product dubbed the Lightning Development Kit. It simplifies the integration of Lightning by removing the need to create a new wallet and so, spearheading mass Bitcoin adoption by fast-tracking its transactions.
