Workings is uniquely placed to be able to meet the evidentiary challenges of patent applications and copyright protection, which are centred around the need for cryptographic proofing and comprehensive process capture.
Developers of IP face two evidentiary challenges:
Patent applications require maintenance of concurrent records of the creative process in order to prove that the invention was created first, and independently in the face of a priority dispute or misappropriation defence. Furthermore, litigation in Australia, the UK, and the US has recently determined that relevant patent statutes require an inventor to be a human being (see endnote 1).
Copyright protection requires proof of “meaningful human creative input” on top of proving when your creation was made. The focus on this requirement has increased significantly with the wide adoption of AI tools, with courts widely noting that copyright can not be granted to works lacking meaningful human authorship (see endnote 2).
These evidentiary challenges have significant overlap, however, Workings is uniquely placed to satisfy the technical requirements which include:
Cryptographic proofing to prove that your workflows have not been tampered with and occurred when you claimed they were.
Comprehensive process capture to demonstrate how your creation came about, across any application.
Cryptographic proofing
Record keeping is only as good as its ability to prove that something happened at a particular point in time. The problem with conventional records is that they can be fabricated after the fact:
Hand written notes can be generated at any time.
A Word processor's metadata can be changed.
Files can be backdated. Emails can be reconstructed.
In the absence of cryptographic hashing, any digital record - however detailed - remains vulnerable to the allegation that it was created or altered after the fact. File metadata can be changed, version histories can be reconstructed, and screenshots can be fabricated. Without a tamper-evident anchor tied to an independently verifiable external timestamp, a record proves only that it currently exists, not that it existed in its current form at the time claimed.
Cryptographic proofing involves anchoring a digital fingerprint (a cryptographic hash) of your work to an independently verifiable external timestamp, typically a public blockchain. The hash is a unique fixed-length string derived from the content of your file; if even a single character changes, the hash changes entirely. Because the hash is recorded on a blockchain at a specific point in time, it creates tamper-evident proof that the work existed in exactly that form at that moment, and that it has not been altered since.
Cryptographically sealed and anchored onchain at the moment they are made, records cannot be forged after the fact. Protected against future advances in AI mimicry.
Workings cryptographic proofing is designed to produce evidence meeting the standards courts and patent offices apply to digital records - including tamper-evidence, independent timestamp verification, and chain of custody integrity.
Comprehensive process capture
Patent applications can rely on cryptographic snapshots of key components of the creation to establish timing and independence. However, in order to establish “meaningful human creative input” for copyright protection, the IP developer must be able to demonstrate how they developed their creation. To do this, three elements are required:
Continuous data collection. Workings captures data points continuously and passively, correlated with user activity - meaning that the frequency of capture reflects the intensity of work being done. The record is not a series of manually chosen snapshots but an unbroken log of the creative process as it actually unfolded. [As a guide, Workings captures 500+ data points in an hour of consistent work.]
High fidelity data. Workings enables you to collect an insight rich timeline. The timeline is made from screenshots and metadata (capture efficiency can be optimised further by allowing keystroke pattern access). The timeline shows the full context of what was happening on the desktop as the creation took shape. The problem with collecting anything short of screenshots - such as keystroke logs, metadata records, or application event data - is that these capture what was typed or clicked, but not the context in which those actions occurred. They cannot show what sources were open, what research was being consulted, what AI tools were being used, or how the work was taking shape visually. A keystroke log can detect that a paste event occurred, but cannot show what was pasted or where it came from. A screenshot of the desktop at that moment does.
Working across all applications. By taking screenshots of the desktop, Workings is app-agnostic, which is necessary to ensure that the full picture is captured, and also allows users to work in their natural environment (as opposed to being limited to specific tools/editors).
Other tools that offer cryptographic proofing fall short in two areas:
Manual data collection. A number of tools require the user to manually upload files for record keeping; these tools were developed with patent requirements in mind, but are ineffective in regards to copyright claims as they make no effort to show how the creation was made.
Low fidelity data, and in some cases, data collection limited to specific apps. These tools generally store and process data away from the user’s device, so seek to limit the nature of data collected. In doing so, they fail to capture significant information to demonstrate meaningful human creative input.
Privacy first architecture
The comprehensive data collection facilitated by Workings necessitates a privacy first architecture. This has been put together by the team behind Workings who bring significant background in cybersecurity, blockchain and military R&D.
All data captured by Workings is stored locally on the user's own device and processed on-device (or wherever you keep your sensitive data) - it is never transmitted to Workings' servers or any third party unless the user makes an active choice to export and share a report. This architecture means that sensitive work product, confidential client information, and personal data captured incidentally during the recording process remains entirely within the user's control. The redaction feature allows sensitive data to be redacted from the database entirely.
What processes does Workings work with?
Workings captures the digital component of the creation process - which for the majority of knowledge-work - represents the primary, and often the sole, evidential trail. This includes software development, written works, design files, research outputs, business plans, and any other IP developed principally through digital tools. Because Workings is app-agnostic, it collects all of the information that is used to contribute to the development of the final product.
Where a creation process involves physical components - laboratory work, physical prototyping, or hardware development - Workings captures the digital workflows surrounding and supporting that physical work: the research, the documentation, the design iterations, and the communications. This material often constitutes significant evidence in its own right. Recordings, photographs, and scanned documents from physical processes can be imported into Workings, where they are incorporated into the same cryptographically timestamped record as the digital workflow evidence.
Where IP is developed collaboratively across multiple individuals, each contributor installs Workings on their own device. The resulting records can be presented individually or together to demonstrate the respective contributions of each team member to the final work product.
Endnotes:
Australia: Commissioner of Patents v Thaler [2022] FCAFC 62 - the Full Federal Court unanimously held that an inventor under the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) must be a natural person. US: Thaler v Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022) - the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the Patent Act limits inventorship to natural persons; the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on 24 April 2023. UK: Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2023] UKSC 49 - the UK Supreme Court confirmed that only a natural person can be named as inventor under the Patents Act 1977.
Australia: Human authorship is required under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) as confirmed by the Full Federal Court in Telstra Corporation Ltd v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCAFC 149 and Acohs Pty Ltd v Ucorp Pty Ltd [2012] FCAFC 16, both of which held that copyright can only subsist in a work if it originates from a human author. US: Thaler v Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 18 March 2025) - the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed that the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible works to be authored in the first instance by a human being; the Supreme Court denied certiorari on 2 March 2026, leaving that ruling intact. UK: Section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 expressly provides for computer-generated works, deeming the author to be the person who made the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work (meaning that works can be copyrighted which have been entirely generated by AI). However in March 2026, the UK government’s Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence which proposes to remove the protection for computer-generated works under the Act.