Twenty five years ago today I (as Mark Anthony) was married to Cleopatra by Elvis in Las Vegas. Still going strong.

Any idea why the number of GB patent applications filed by nChain would suddenly fall from an average of around 70 per year to only 3 so far in 2024?

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.

I have taken Mr Wright's ramblings seriously for once and have now become not just an irrelevant full node operator (with a Lightning node able to zap micropayments here, but Wright always seems to dismiss that) but I am now a miner too, thanks to a combination of Umbrel and Bitaxe. Currently mining with a hash rate of 618.2 GH/s!

Here I am being interviewed for the 4th time by Gavin about all things Faketoshi. @jack mallers kindly let me borrow his closet for the occasion.

GM all. I’m being interviewed by Gavin again later today, for the 4th time. Anything I should mention? Maybe I should just admit we’ve lost and Craig is Satoshi?

Arthur van Pelt and Mark Hunter must think I have something interesting to say because they invited me for the second time on the Dr Bitcoin podcast to talk about Craig Wright's patenting activities in Europe. Here's the latest episode, where I ramble at length about the oppositions Arthur and I have filed and what I think nChain are actually trying to do. Please give it a listen on Patreon, otherwise you will need to wait a little while before it appears on other platforms. If you want to help us out on the oppositions we have filed or help us file more, all contributions are welcome. https://www.patreon.com/posts/david-pearce-82862633