Dragonfly Partner Challenges DFINITY’s Patent Infringement Claims

Haseeb Qureshi, a partner at Dragonfly, has publicly countered allegations made by DFINITY founder Dominic Williams regarding the unauthorized use of threshold ECDSA signature technology. The dispute centers on whether the NEAR Protocol’s implementation of "NEAR Intents" infringed upon intellectual property rights, with Qureshi providing evidence that the patent in question was only recently granted.

Patent Timeline and Academic Licensing

According to documentation shared by Qureshi, the patent cited by DFINITY was only approved at the end of July 2026, having previously maintained a "patent pending" status. This timeline is significant because NEAR Intents reportedly modified its specific algorithm in September 2026 to avoid potential conflicts. Qureshi highlighted that the original technology was based on an academic paper published under a CC BY license, which generally allows for the sharing and adaptation of material provided that appropriate credit is given.

• NEAR Protocol cited the original academic paper in its technical implementation.
• The period of alleged infringement lasted approximately one month.
• The algorithm was available in the public domain via academic channels before the patent was finalized.

Implications for Blockchain Interoperability

The technology at the heart of the debate, threshold ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), is crucial for modern blockchain interoperability and cross-chain transactions. While Dominic Williams maintains that DFINITY's research was used without proper authorization, the Dragonfly partner argues that the academic origins of the research complicate claims of "theft."

If the alleged patent infringement only involved approximately one month, and the relevant algorithm was originally published in an academic paper with a CC BY license... NEAR also cited this paper in its implementation.

Threshold signatures are essential for decentralized finance (DeFi) as they allow multiple parties to collectively sign transactions without a single point of failure.

The resolution of this dispute may set a precedent for how intellectual property (IP) is handled within the open-source cryptocurrency ecosystem. As NEAR and DFINITY continue to develop competing scaling solutions, the industry remains focused on balancing the protection of proprietary research with the collaborative nature of Web3 development. This incident underscores the increasing legal complexities as major protocols seek to secure their technical innovations through traditional patent frameworks.