Blockchain

From Bitcoins to NFTs, the technology that has been on everyone's lips for years and promises solutions to any problem.

What is Blockchain

It is an agglomeration of different systems ranging from peer-to-peer technologies (for data exchange) to more or less complex cryptographic and digital signature systems.

It is an electronic ledger in which small portions of data can be stored through a process called a transaction. A digital signature is attached to each transaction, a process that gives that transaction a time stamp and makes it possible to verify at any time that the data has not been modified.

Since transactions are chained together in chronological order and through cryptographic mechanisms, changing one piece of data would compromise the entire sequence. For this reason, data in a blockchain ledger can only be added: it is not possible to change the data previously entered.

A final feature of this electronic ledger is that data is shared among several 'nodes' that have a full copy of the entire registry: thanks to this distribution, the attempted alteration of a single copy or loss of one of the nodes does not jeopardise the integrity of the data within it: in the first case, the tampered copy of the ledger would be automatically rejected by the remaining nodes, while in the second case the data would still be accessible through the remaining nodes.

rcAuthority for Intellectual Property and Copyright

Rights Chain adopted blockchain technology in 2017 as the registry where records of works are saved. This is a private registry dedicated solely to the management of intellectual property, where the essential information of a work is saved:

• Title of the original work
• Date of registration
• Fingerprint of the original file
• Country of origin
• Associated licence of use
• Author's name or pseudonym

This set of information makes registration effective for honouring, among other things, Creative Commons licence requirements or international standards based on the country of origin of the work.

The immutability features of the registry make the technology perfect for long-term data preservation which, in the case of copyright or image rights, requires a lifetime preservation of certain information.

The ability to clone the registry across multiple actors has allowed us to create the first distributed blockchain registry dedicated to intellectual property and copyright, and to have the ability to check whether a work has been registered, and if so on what date, through any of the partners who have joined the distributed ledger.

rcGovernance™ for Business

In 2021, we also adopted the same technology to keep track of Digital Data Governance within Rights Chain.

To ensure service excellence, we have adopted the Blockchain ledger to keep track of the most important operations in the business process such as:

• management of our Clients' token "wallets" (required for job registration activities)
• digital signature of invoices and official communications
• tracking of communications and their integrity towards our customers
• tracking of purchasing processes for products and solutions.

Our Research & Development activities are focused on fully digital data management, and the ability to verify data integrity allows us not only to offer a service of excellence but also to identify a problem and assess the impact it has had since it occurred.

Other Uses

Rights Chain does not plan, neither now nor in the future, to extend the functionalities of blockchain technology used for purposes other than those mentioned above such as, by way of non-exhaustive example, cryptocurrencies.

We have had the opportunity to analyse and carry out case studies, applications or scenario analysis of blockchain technology adoption in sectors such as:

• Fashion
• Pharmaceutical
• Governance
• Manufacturing
• Supply Chain
• Telecommunications