During WIPO’s 59th General Assembly in October 2019, its member states unanimously approved the creation of WIPO PROOF, a new online service for establishing evidence of the existence and possession of a digital asset at a specific point in time. Such digital assets include various types of intellectual property, including:
- Trade secrets and know-how
- Creative works and designs
- Research and data
- Other digital assets
WIPO PROOF offers evidential documentation in 10 different languages of the world’s largest markets for innovation and IP.
WIPO PROOF uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology in generating digital fingerprints of files, which are digitally signed to produce encrypted tamperproof “tokens”. The service complies with the eIDAS regulation, ETSI (RFC 3161) technical standards, and conforms to the ISO/IEC 27001 standard for Information Security Management. WIPO PROOF's eIDAS compliance makes WIPO a trusted Time Stamping Authority (TSA).
Anyone can use WIPO PROOF, generating digital evidence in a matter of seconds online, for a wide variety of use cases and payment methods. There are features and packages which are targeted to larger entities, including pre-paid bundles, APIs, and use of Current Account at WIPO allow the service to be directly integrated into 3rd party applications to facilitate more extensive use.
Law firms, IP practices and legal representatives can use the service on behalf of their clients by declaring a different owner for each file.
Business use examples of WIPO PROOF are presented on the WIPO website at: https://wipoproof.wipo.int/wdts/use-cases.xhtml.