Maria Samartseva, Counsel and Head of the IP Litigation Practice at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin & Partners (RGD), delivered a talk at the panel discussion “NFT as a Stage in the Evolution of Blockchain Technology” at the Web3 Tech Conference 2022.

During the session, the experts discussed the possibility of wide acceptance of NFT technology and analyzed various application scenarios available to companies and barriers that arise in the way of NFTs and metaverses.

In her talk, Maria highlighted another topic that sparked a discussion − the legal regulation of NFTs in Russia and other countries. She pointed out that the existing technology is adequate for confirming property and intellectual property rights to digital art pieces and ensuring their circulation.

According to Maria, proper legal regulation will increase the transparency of interactions between NFT creators and collectors, allow them to assess and manage related risks, determine the prospects of litigation, and find the most effective ways to develop new tools for protecting intellectual property.

However, creating a universal bill to regulate all activities around NFTs remains a global challenge since this technology includes much more than just digital art. In addition, the legal status of tokens is yet to be defined since, among other things, the current legislation is still lacking regulation for other terms that make up the concept of NFT token: digital asset, digital content, blockchain, and many others. Therefore, according to Maria, legal protection of this technology will require, first and foremost, defining the basic concepts in this area.