  With the explosive development of decentralized finance, we witness a
phenomenal growth in tokenization of all kinds of assets, including equity,
funds, debt, and real estate. By taking advantage of blockchain technology,
digital assets are broadly grouped into fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Here non-fungible tokens refer to those with unique and non-substitutable
properties. NFT has widely attracted attention, and its protocols, standards,
and applications are developing exponentially. It has been successfully applied
to digital fantasy artwork, games, collectibles, etc. However, there is a lack
of research in utilizing NFT in issues such as Intellectual Property. Applying
for a patent and trademark is not only a time-consuming and lengthy process but
also costly. NFT has considerable potential in the intellectual property
domain. It can promote transparency and liquidity and open the market to
innovators who aim to commercialize their inventions efficiently. The main
objective of this paper is to examine the requirements of presenting
intellectual property assets, specifically patents, as NFTs. Hence, we offer a
layered conceptual NFT-based patent framework. Furthermore, a series of open
challenges about NFT-based patents and the possible future directions are
highlighted. The proposed framework provides fundamental elements and guidance
for businesses in taking advantage of NFTs in real-world problems such as grant
patents, funding, biotechnology, and so forth.
