Jonathan Goins, Josh Curry Speak with Legaltech News About UK Proposal Extending Property Right to Digital Assets

Atlanta, Ga. (October 12, 2022) – Atlanta Partners and Intellectual Property & Technology Practice Vice-Chairs Jonathan D. Goins and Joshua D. Curry were recently quoted by Legaltech News (part of Law.com) in an article about a proposal from the Law Commission of England and Wales to extend existing personal property law to digital assets, such as cryptocurrency and NFTs.

Mr. Goins spoke about how this proposal could lead other countries’ governing bodies to consider similar legal reform, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The fact that you have an international body or commission from another country taking a strong view that NFTs or digital assets are deemed to be a personal property, that to me creates a lot of friction and I think it will force, at some point, the U.S. Copyright Office to revisit their approach,” he said to Legaltech News.

Mr. Curry echoed these sentiments, but emphasized that it might take several years for long-standing intellectual property laws to be impacted, drawing a parallel to the early days of the software industry.

“There was a lot of back-and-forth fighting about who owned what, what exactly it means to license software and what’s covered and can you own the graphical user interface and how much of it can you own, is it protected by copyright and all of that,” Mr. Curry said. “And that got fought out for quite a while in the court system and some of it got codified into copyright law. That’s probably what you’ll see happen with new digital asset technologies over the course of a decade or so, maybe longer.”

Mr. Goins is a vice-chair of Lewis Brisbois' Intellectual Property & Technology and Entertainment, Media & Sports Practices. He serves as lead counsel in IP litigation across the country, including in “bet the company” cases with multimillion-dollar exposures. With two decades of experience, he is consistently ranked in leading publications for his deep and expansive knowledge in IP and entertainment law.

Mr. Curry is vice-chair of Lewis Brisbois' Intellectual Property & Technology Practice. He serves as lead counsel in patent, intellectual property, and technology litigation cases and is a registered patent attorney. An experienced litigator with a physics degree and considerable technical expertise, Mr. Curry helps clients effectively achieve their business goals when enforcing and defending their IP rights.

Read the full Legaltech News article, titled "UK Proposal Extending Property Right to Digital Assets Could Have Sweeping Consequences," here and on Law.com's International Edition here (subscription may be required).