September 15, 2022
By Anjali Kochhar
The European Union (EU) is working on a project involving blockchain architecture and the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fight counterfeiting and forgery.
The new project is the product of several meetings and blockchain hackathons organized by the European Union Intellectual Property Office and proposes to create digital twins of products to trace their path across supply lines.
The EU has recently announced that is working on a system that will use blockchain and NFTs as part of its fight against the counterfeiting of physical goods.
As per a document issued this month, the organization has already selected a high-level architecture for this task, and details generalities about how the system will work.
Intellectual property (IP) holders will create digital tokens (twin NFTs) to prove that a group of produced goods are authentic. These IP holders will have to be previously included as approved signatories to create these products on the tracking blockchain.
The solution will then allow for supply chain tracking as the products are transported through different checkpoints, allowing the IP holders to be certain that the products that reach stores are authentic.
The European Union Intellectual Property Office hopes to have a working system by the end of 2023 but a lot needs to go in this.
If the European Union manages to implement this system by the end of 2023, it will be one of the first applications of blockchain technology at that scale for the objective. However, blockchain tech has also been used for supply line tracking before.
About the author
Anjali Kochhar covers cryptocurrency stories in India as well as globally. Having been in the field of media and journalism for over three years now, she has developed a sharp news sense and works hard to present information that goes beyond the obvious. She is an avid reader and loves writing on a wide range of subjects.