An Analytical Study of Blockchain-Based Intellectual Property Management in Biological Data

Abstract

The growing dependence on massive biological and bioinformatics datasets has created new obstacles regarding IPR, data ownership and provenance and ethical governance. While traditional IPR considers laws to protect inventions and organised databases, the current state of biological data cannot fully be protected against the challenges of being shared, created collaboratively and changed frequently. Many people suggest that blockchain may be able to address some of these challenges to IPR; however, there is limited analytical research on its actual effectiveness at overcoming many issues regarding biological data. This paper presents an analytical examination of various frameworks for the management of IPR in biological data through the use of blockchain technology. Understanding the major components for example (Provenance tracking, ownership, verification, access control, licensing enforcement, and consent management) within the context of biological data enabled this paper's authors to compare blockchain versus more traditional forms of management systems. Overall, this analysis shows a marked increase in the transparency, traceability, and trust between participants using blockchain to manage IPR in biological data; however, the blockchain is not without some limitations related to the aspects of scale, privacy, and regulatory compliance. Finally, this paper presents both empirical and conceptual support for the proposition that blockchain will be a useful component in managing IPR related to biologically based datasets.