Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi Challenges DFINITY's NEAR Intents Patent Claim, Citing Recent Approval

Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi challenged DFINITY founder Dominic Williams' patent infringement allegation against NEAR Intents, saying the relevant patent had been approved only about a month before the disputed period. According to Odaily, Williams said NEAR Intents' chain-abstraction feature used threshold ECDSA signing technology that DFINITY had licensed only for Internet Computer, and alleged that a person fired by DFINITY in 2021 helped advance the work.

Qureshi questioned the timeline, saying the patent was approved in late July this year and NEAR modified the algorithm in September. Under Williams' timeline, Qureshi said, the period between patent approval and the algorithm change may have been about one month. He added that the patent remained an application before formal approval and argued that actions before approval could not directly be deemed infringement.

The algorithm was first published in an academic paper under a CC BY license, which NEAR cited in its implementation. Qureshi questioned whether Williams' public accusation was justified in that context. The dispute concerns the patent approval timeline, the basis for using the technology and whether NEAR's implementation constitutes infringement. The statements remain the parties' respective public positions.