What can enter under this category:
- Patents — granted, pending, provisional - Trademarks — registered, common-law, pending registration - Copyrights — books, music, software, visual art, choreography, recorded teachings - Trade secrets — proprietary processes, formulas, methodologies the cell holds and chooses to bring under collective stewardship - Domain names — DNS holdings, web property - Brand assets — logos, marks, names, identity systems - Open-source contributions — author rights to projects already released under permissive licenses
How IP enters the body
IP is unusually portable. Title can transfer to the wrapper without the asset moving anywhere physically. Common patterns:
- Title transfer: the wrapper becomes the legal owner; the cell retains attribution and any agreed shepherd rights (e.g., approval over derivative works) - Exclusive license to wrapper: the cell retains title; the wrapper holds the right to use, license further, and enforce - Non-exclusive license to wrapper: the cell and wrapper both hold rights - Public dedication: the cell donates the IP to the public domain via the wrapper's dedication ceremony
For cells whose IP is their living (writers, musicians, inventors), the wrapper's job is often to handle licensing logistics so the cell can focus on creative work — the wrapper receives royalties, pays the cell their agreed share through the cooperative pool, and handles enforcement against unauthorized use.
Story Protocol integration
For digital IP especially, the network's existing
story-protocol-integration spec provides on-chain registration of
IP assets with content hashes, derivative tracking, and x402
micropayment settlement. IP entered here can be registered through
that pipeline so its provenance is walkable on-chain in addition to
in our graph.
Privacy
Public-level: kind of IP, broad nature (a patent in *electromechanical domain, a copyrighted body of work in contemplative practice writings), title status, wrapper relationship. Not public*: full text of unpublished works, exact financial terms of license deals, trade-secret content itself.
Inventory template
```yaml - kind: patent | trademark | copyright | trade-secret | domain-name | brand-asset | other broad_description: "what kind of IP, in what domain" status: granted | pending | registered | unregistered | published | unpublished relationship: held | access-granted | proposed primary_shepherd: cell_id_or_name wrapper_relationship: title-transferred | exclusive-license | non-exclusive-license | story-protocol-registered | public-domain ceremony_date: YYYY-MM-DD notes: "anything the registry should know" ```
Currently held (this cell's inventory)
```yaml # Awaiting inventory. # Any patents, copyrights, domain names, trademarks, or written/recorded # bodies of work the cell wants to bring under collective stewardship. ```
Awaiting inventory — slots
Likely candidates: domain names the cell holds, any written/recorded/published bodies of work, any trademarks or brand-marks, any patents (granted or pending), any open-source projects the cell has authored.