Hilco Streambank announced it has been retained as the exclusive agent to identify an acquirer of a foundational patent portfolio covering blockchain-enabled multifactor biometric identity verification.
The portfolio contains 2 patent families and has worldwide coverage, consisting of 8 U.S. granted patents and more than 30 issued patents and pending applications worldwide.
Indications of interest to acquire some or all of the portfolio are due to Hilco Streambank by October 13, 2023.
The patents cover the processes and methods of establishing verification addresses, recording identifiers and biometrics at those verification addresses, and using biometric data to verify identity with unique identifiers, all of which is enabled by blockchain technology. Critically, priority on the portfolio dates back to 2016.
Numerous industries, particularly in the financial, healthcare, IT, and technology sectors, have already developed and implemented biometric verification technology, and the nascent, global blockchain identity management market as a whole is projected to grow exponentially over the next five to eight years, making this portfolio incredibly important for both defensive and offensive patent positioning. Any firm offering blockchain-enabled digital identity solutions will be impacted by this family of patents.
Hilco Streambank Senior Vice President and head of patent advisory, Karl Maersch—who has held previous positions at Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, and Jones Day, where he has generated billions of dollars from patent monetization efforts—notes of this portfolio, “The existing and potential technology applications covered by this portfolio are expansive and will likely touch on most of the digital transactions we as consumers and market participants will engage in forever moving forward in the modern digital landscape. So many new patents represent only minor incremental advances in a field. But this family of patents actually forms the foundation for an entire, burgeoning global blockchain identity management market, which is projected to grow at an annual CAGR of more than 80% over the next five years.” Maersch went on to say, “Any strategic developers or investors with stakes in technology covering cybersecurity, blockchain applications, identity management, financial regulatory and compliance (including KYC and AML), self-sovereign identity (SIS), decentralized identity (DID), and other IT and cybersecurity protocols should really be paying attention to this opportunity.“