Upbit bitcoin exchange accused of patent infringement

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, Upbit, has faced a lawsuit filed by a university foundation over alleged intellectual property infringement. Forkast.News reports.

The Seoul University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation claims that the trading platform infringed the patent for its “System for an Electronic Wallet for Secure Transactions and Its Algorithm.” The organization filed the patent application on April 17, 2018.

Upbit allegedly used the foundation’s claimed solutions for depositing and withdrawing funds, storing them in cold wallets, detecting anomalous transactions, and transmitting data about them to the regulator.

The foundation seeks a court to prohibit the exchange from providing services that it regards as its intellectual property.

Upbit said its services were operating even before the foundation filed its patent.

“Public launch of Upbit occurred in October 2017. It seems evident to us that there is no violation, even without evidence of prior use of the described system,” the exchange’s statement was quoted by the publication.

The foundation’s representative says that before filing the patent the exchange did not provide services based on the described solutions. The organization is convinced that using Upbit’s system has only recently begun addressing issues related to compliance with new rules for crypto exchanges.

“It would be better to resolve the issue by mutual agreement, but if not, we will take decisive measures to protect our patent rights,” said the foundation’s representative.

Earlier, in 2018, Upbit executives were accused of fraud. In 2020, a Seoul court acquitted the managers.

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