A lesser-known service, but critical to the company's success for many companies, is the storage of trade secrets with a trustee who acts as an impartial third party between two or more parties. All parties have a substantial economic interest in these trade secrets, which the owner of the intellectual property does not wish to share with the other parties.
A very easy to explain variant is the so-called source code escrow. A software provider makes programs or processes based on programs available to its customers that use them to achieve critical processes and/or important results for their own companies. The software manufacturer does not want to distribute the source code for good reasons, because it forms the basis of his business model and he has to fear a corresponding disadvantage if copied or further developed by third parties. For his customers, however, it is important to have a certainty that in the event of a failure of the manufacturer, their own business will not suffer, because then the source code will be available for further operation and possible further development.
For this purpose, the notary acts as a trustee. So far so good, as far as known.
What will change with Digital Escrow
A lot, because the process will be easier for everyone involved. The notary is given additional opportunities to expand his service as a trustee. Any kind of objectification of digital assets in data carriers is omitted. No one needs to create storage media anymore that may not have been fully created, are defective, or have a maximum lifespan. Tapes no longer need to be rewound regularly, CDs and DVDs do not have to be checked for the formats that currently available players still support, questions about the protection class of vaults and the reliability of locations are eliminated.
With Digital Escrow by DENIC Services, the notary can offer his clients an escrow service that is handled and controlled completely online. In a kind of control center, the notary can set the parameters for a trustee relationship online, adjust and expand them at any time. Appointment reminders for planned deliveries, reminders for non-deliveries and confirmation messages for successful deliveries can be sent automatically. At any time, suppliers or beneficiaries can be added or deregistered via the notary's portal, so that all kinds of possible business relationships can be mapped. An automobile manufacturer for example can use Digital Escrow to ask all its suppliers to deposit important design documents, parts lists, drawings, etc. with the trustee.
Via a contract configurator, which uses templates specified by the notary himself for all parties involved, they are supplied with the necessary contract documents and can sign them electronically.
All parties involved have access to the system, which is made available to the firm's corporate design and thus as an integral part of its one-stop shop.
All deposits from all suppliers are fully electronic and are automatically and immediately checked for completeness. Incomplete or unencrypted deposits will be rejected. Accepted deposits are provided with a time stamp that documents the time of acceptance for later proof.
Delivered digital assets can be all kinds of digital files, including digital contracts, documents, access data, key files, certificates, configuration files and, in the future, e.B. also NFT tokens, with which the ownership of real goods is documented via a blockchain.
All these digital assets are securely encrypted as a deposit, checked for completeness upon delivery and then archived in two ISO27001-certified data centers in two EU countries. After archiving, these deposits are no longer accessible via the Internet. All deposits remain archived encrypted for the entire retention period. After the retention period specified by the notary, deposits are automatically and completely deleted.
With just a few clicks, the notary expands his service portfolio with a digital escrow service with constantly recurring income.