Patent Protection for Blockchain Innovations in India

Blockchain patent filings in India have been rising significantly, reflecting growing interest in this transformative technology. Once associated primarily with cryptocurrencies, blockchain is now recognized for its potential to reshape industries by fostering trust, transparency, and security in digital systems. Blockchain functions as a decentralized digital ledger where data is stored in linked blocks, making tampering or alteration extremely difficult. Cryptography ensures transaction security, while smart contracts automate agreements without intermediaries. These features have driven blockchain adoption across finance, healthcare, logistics, governance, and education. Patents play a crucial role in protecting such innovations by offering competitive advantages, attracting investment, and encouraging further research. Yet, innovators still face significant hurdles in protecting blockchain inventions, making it one of the most promising yet challenging areas in intellectual property today.

Regarding patentability in India, an invention must satisfy three key criteria: novelty, an inventive step, and industrial applicability. For blockchain-related inventions, the main hurdles often involve demonstrating the inventive step and ensuring that the claims are not overly abstract. Additionally, a patent application must fulfil all disclosure requirements, including a sufficient description, clear and well-supported claims, and enablement, to allow a person skilled in the art to replicate the invention.

There is another consideration that is especially important for software and blockchain-related inventions. Under Section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”), the mathematical methods, algorithms, business methods, and computer programs “per se” are excluded from patentability. This provision is central to all software-related inventions, including blockchain protocols and consensus algorithms. Since blockchain often relies on cryptographic methods and complex data structures, patent applications must go beyond abstract descriptions. They should explain the cryptographic techniques, data structures, and the interaction of consensus mechanisms with hardware, networks, or system components to demonstrate a concrete technical effect.

The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks (CGPDTM) has published the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs), 2025 (hereinafter referred to as “the guidelines”) that serve as the standard for examination of patent applications involving computer programs, algorithms, mathematical methods, business methods, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), blockchain, quantum computing, and related emerging technologies.

The guidelines are designed to prevent patents on abstract ideas or business methods while rewarding genuine technical innovation. The guideline is significant because, for the first time, it explicitly addresses blockchain and sets clear expectations for how such inventions must be disclosed. This reflects the Patent Office’s recognition of blockchain’s importance while maintaining a focus on quality and clarity.

While an abstract idea, such as a mathematical formula or a theoretical concept like conventional Blockchain, is not patentable due to its lack of practical application, a Blockchain innovation can become patentable when it transforms such abstract principles into a real-world, tangible application. The key to patentability lies in the principle that a blockchain invention must solve a technical problem and demonstrate a tangible “technical effect” or “technical advancement”. Therefore, practical implementations of Blockchain that solve real-world problems can move beyond abstract ideas and qualify as patentable subject matter.

The applicants must also draft the patent application around the actual technical challenges their invention addresses, such as improving data security, enhancing system speed, or optimizing memory usage. For example, a novel consensus protocol that materially improves network efficiency can qualify as a technical advancement. Vague claims such as “a secure system for digital transactions using blockchain” risk rejection under Section 3(k). However, detailed explanations of how the blockchain structure enhances scalability, security, or consensus mechanisms improve its chances.

Patent applications must also provide detailed technical disclosures, including cryptographic techniques, consensus mechanisms (such as Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, or hybrid models), block and data structures, and network or hardware integration. Where smart contracts are involved, the disclosure should explain triggering conditions, fallback mechanisms, and oracle integrations to ensure the innovation’s technical contribution is clear and reproducible. In particular, blockchain applications should disclose cryptographic methods, data structures, consensus models, and system interactions in sufficient detail to enable a skilled person to reproduce the invention. Broad claims such as “a blockchain-based system that ensures trust” are insufficient; applications must instead demonstrate how trust is achieved through specific design choices and implementation.

The guidelines offer practical examples to clarify how blockchain inventions should be disclosed for patentability. For instance, consider a blockchain invention involving a computer-implemented method for executing a rental agreement over a blockchain network. In this scenario, a smart contract deployed on a distributed ledger verifies cryptocurrency payments, generates digital access tokens, activates physical or virtual assets through access control modules, and immutably records rental events including timestamps and payment confirmations. For sufficiency of disclosure, the application would need to define the smart contract logic and its parameters for auto-triggering conditions, explain the protocol stack or interfaces connecting the smart contract to IoT hardware, specify the events that are immutably recorded, and describe fallback mechanisms such as manual overrides, external oracles, handling failed payments, expired contracts, or disputed access events. The invention thus demonstrates patentability by enabling automated enforcement of access and payment rights without centralized servers, reducing fraud and latency, and integrating physical IoT devices for secure and conditional access provisioning.

For another instance, consider a decentralized system for supply chain provenance tracking that employs a private blockchain using a hybrid consensus of Proof of Authority and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance. Here, smart contracts register product provenance, verify sensor data against regulatory thresholds, and dynamically adjust delivery routes by integrating external data via oracles. An off-chain data anchoring mechanism using Merkle trees ensures integrity of high-volume sensor data stored on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The sufficiency of disclosure requires explaining the blockchain platform setup including node configuration, network permissions, and consensus parameters, detailing the functionality of each smart contract such as provenance recording, compliance verification, and dynamic routing, explaining the off-chain storage and anchoring mechanisms, and describing the oracle integration and IoT protocols such as MQTT. This invention demonstrates patentability by enabling tamper-proof, real-time supply chain tracking, low-latency transaction finality for perishable goods such as vaccines, scalable storage through off-chain integration, automated compliance verification, and IoT-enabled environmental monitoring.

Taken together, these examples highlight how blockchain invention can move beyond abstract ideas and demonstrate real-world technical effects, thereby escaping exclusion under Section 3(k) of the Act.

The inclusion of blockchain in the guidelines is more than just a regulatory update, it’s a milestone for innovation in India. While the path to securing patents may now demand greater precision and collaboration with experts, these changes are paving the way for a future where only the most robust and transformative ideas thrive. For startups, this is both a challenge and an opportunity: a call to elevate the quality of inventions, sharpen the focus on real-world technical impact, and work hand-in-hand with patent professionals to turn visionary concepts into legally sound, globally competitive assets.

Gaurav Chhibber

Partner

gaurav@iprattorneys.com

Vani Sahni 

Associate

vani.sahni@iprattorneys.com