Nike just patented to tokenize shoes on Ethereum blockchain with named CryptoKicks

By Congecko News 12/12/19 7:54 AM

Nike – a footwear giant brand just received a patent to tokenize shoes as a non-fungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain, named CryptoKicks.

On Dec 10, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office posted a document, in which Nike stated that it intends to generate unique IDs and create Ethereum ERC721 or ERC1155 tokens for some shoes.

According to that, people can “unlock” tokens by purchasing physical shoes and these tokens can then be linked with unique owner IDs to signify ownership. Along with representation for a digital shoe, the token can also record the so-call genotype information of a digital shoe such as specific attributes, colors, styles, backgrounds.

The aim of the system apparently is to provide a way to ensure the authenticity of the goods. As written in the patent, prospective and current owners “may buy and sell digital assets through one or more blockchain ledgers operating on the decentralized computing system”.

For instance, a user can buy a pair of highly sought after sneakers from a verified vendor who could provide authenticated provenance records for the sneakers. Then, when getting the shoebox containing the purchased sneakers, the user scans the box UPC with a barcode scan feature in a sneakers app operating on the user’s smartphone.

Particularly, Nike also said that creating the token may be linked to shoe sales, so it will allow for the verification of the scarcity of the shoes in circulation.

On the other hand, the patent could presumably give users more control over their shoes and shoe design. For example, owners can set limits on the number of copies of their proprietary shoes that can be cloned and produced. Moreover, having “surrogacy features” to provide others the right to incorporate shoe designs and “parenting features” to allow third parties to take care of the shoes.

Besides, the patent has borrowed ideas from popular blockchain collectible cats game CryptoKitties, more precisely, it suggests that the shoes can be bred.

When using digital assets, buyers will be able to securely trade or sell physical shoes, exchange or sell digital shoes, store digital shoes in a digital wallet or other digital blockchain keys… In addition, based on the accepted rules of shoe production, there are several new shoe models created as a new, tangible pair of shoes.

However, “breeding rights may be governed by one or more real-world production restrictions; Ownership of each successive generation of digital shoes can be reattached to the original real-world shoe through encryption key to the original linked virtual product”, read the patent.

Generally, it is not too surprising that Nike has looked to tokenize footwear. In China, limited-edition footwear produced by named brands are creating a frenzy and Nike got a 22% quarterly revenue jump in Sept.

While blockchain becomes more mature and big companies engage with the technology more, development in the industry is accelerating. Still, experts warn that this is an industry in which the U.S is not at the forefront, instead, China seems handily outpacing other countries with many patent applications in the blockchain space.