Blockchain Enabled Governance of Intellectual Property: Evidentiary Integrity, Licensing Automation, and Enforcement Design

Abstract

Intellectual property governance faces pressure from platform fragmentation, growing volumes of digital works, and persistent counterfeiting. Blockchain is proposed as infrastructure for evidentiary certainty and transactional transparency, but its legal value depends on governance and doctrinal fit. This article examines how blockchain can strengthen intellectual property protection and rights management across copyright, patents, and trademarks, and identifies conditions under which blockchain records and smart contract licensing can be relied upon. The study applies doctrinal analysis and comparative review of international guidance and public sector practice, supported by desk research of empirical and statistical reports. Use cases are systematized along the intellectual property lifecycle, and legal design requirements are derived for evidence, licensing, and enforcement. Findings show that blockchain is most effective for timestamped integrity records, auditable chains of title, registry synchronization, and conditional automation of licensing performance. However, blockchain does not establish originality, inventiveness, or authorship identity without trusted attestations and off chain documentation. Smart contracts can reduce transaction costs but may intensify legal risk when code diverges from intent, requiring transparent terms, remedies, and human readable disclosures, especially where NFTs create confusion about rights transfer. Future work should test interoperability models between intellectual property offices and private registries, evaluate evidentiary standards in litigation, assess privacy trade offs and data minimization, and develop sector specific governance for licensing metadata, audits, and correction of erroneous on chain records, and examine compliance with consumer protection, data protection, and cross border enforcement cooperation mechanisms.