During oral proceedings at the EPO this week, the other side's attorneys made a couple of assertions. I have my own views but I'm not an expert in this field and would like to see what others think. The first assertion was that all transactions in Bitcoin inevitably contain an unlocking script. The second was that Ethereum doesn't have locking and unlocking scripts. These turned out to be irrelevant to the validity of the patent we were discussing (which got revoked anyway), but made me wonder whether the other side knew what they were talking about.

Normally in my work as a patent attorney, when I see a hugely long and specific claim 1 like this I will immediately wonder what idiot wrote that. In some cases, however, claiming an invention in such specific terms is absolutely what is required. In this case, claim 1 of US patent 6,829,355 defines what became known as SHA256, which will be well know to many here at least. There is only really one way of doing it, and that way became a widespread standard, so that's what the claim specified. The patent remained valid and in force up until the point it finally expired on 5 June 2023. The general principle of claiming the invention as broadly as possible, while mostly correct, does therefore have exceptions.