A simple web application with powerful features.
blockchain certificates
To get a blockchain certificate for any document or a collection of documents, just upload it. Bernstein will craft a special blockchain transaction that contains both a cryptographic fingerprint of your IP assets and a proof of your ownership. This transaction is the root of the blockchain certificate issued by Bernstein.
The Bernstein registration protocol will chain together all certificates related to the same project, therefore allowing users to create a digital trail of records proving the evolution of the project.
Each certificate can be independently verified by any third party without any involvement of Bernstein, thanks to the decentralized design of Bernstein registration protocol.
Please note: getting a certificate for a document does not make it public, since the blockchain will only contain the cryptographic fingerprint of the document.
Perfect confidentiality
Thanks to Bernstein’s unique zero-knowledge architecture, users will be able to generate certificates for their digital assets without disclosing data to any third party, not even to Bernstein itself!
All information and documents submitted by a user will be locally encrypted, right in the browser, before reaching the Bernstein server. And, of course, the encryption key is known only by the user and it never gets sent to the server.
Therefore Bernstein is a new kind of notary service that completely ignores the digital assets it certifies.
The Bernstein team has a unique experience in browser cryptography, dating back to 2007. Today Bernstein uses the most advanced Web Crypto API and proven cryptographic primitives and protocols.
encrypted storage
In order to validate a blockchain certificate (as any other digital certificate) the certified documents in their exact original format are needed. Not even one bit changed. Otherwise the certificate won't validate the documents.
That's why Bernstein offers versioned and encrypted storage to its users. Because we know how hard it is to create and maintain a repository over long times. And the lifespan of IP assets is measured in years and decades!
Bernstein offers multiple storage options: from solid commercial cloud solutions to fully decentralized IPFS nodes.
Legal acceptance
Blockchain certificates are valid worldwide because they are not guaranteed by any central authority, but by mathematics. Moreover, the explicit admissibility in court of blockchain-based records and signatures is starting to appear in many jurisdictions around the world.
The convenience of the blockchain as a public registry is clearly perceived and encouraged by many nations (US, Sweden, Japan, Brazil, UK, Dubai, …). Some countries, such as China and the USA already have legal precedents using blockchain evidences to settle disputed related to intellectual property matters. The EU is heading in the same direction, and the current eIDAS regulation already prohibits courts from denying the legal admissibility of timestamps as evidence on sole grounds that the timestamp does not meet the more stringent requirements of an EU-qualified timestamp.
Moreover with expert testimony, the purely mathematical strength of a blockchain certificate can be presented in court everywhere. Read more here.
Multiple platforms, multiple certificates
Bernstein designed its registration protocol to be completely agnostic of the underlying blockchain. And although Bernstein is currently deployed on the Bitcoin blockchain, it can be ported to any other blockchain whether public or private.
While we strongly believe in the power of decentralization, we are helping the transition by also offering digital certificates issued by central authorities.
Currently Bernstein users may secure their IP assets both with Bitcoin certificates, as well as digital EU and China timestamps from trusted timestamping authorities (TSA).
Bernstein is a regular web app that runs in any modern browser. Easy to deploy even in large and dispersed organizations.
“Blockchain technology will have the potential to completely restructure the principles of intellectual property – its protection as well as its use.
Together with partners, create a blockchain-based alternative for conventional IPR that is quicker, more transparent, impossible to manipulate, and works without middlemen.”