Timestamp an invention or a trade secret, now that WIPO PROOF is gone

Until 2022 the World Intellectual Property Organization offered WIPO PROOF: you gave it a file's digital fingerprint and got back a signed token showing that the file existed at a given date and time. Inventors used it for designs and lab notes, companies for trade secrets, creators for drafts, all without disclosing the content.

WIPO stopped issuing tokens at the end of January 2022. The tokens already issued remain valid, WIPO says, and Singapore's IP office, which offered the service locally, states that storage, verification and certificate services for existing customers remain available until 31 January 2027. Two things follow: if you hold tokens, make sure you can check them yourself; and if you have something new to date, you need another way.

If you hold WIPO PROOF tokens

A token is checked offline, without WIPO's servers. Keep these four things together:

• the original file, byte for byte unaltered;
• its token (a .tsr file);
• WIPO's certificate authority chain (wipo_cachain.pem) and timestamping authority certificate (WIPO_TSA.crt), both listed on the WIPO PROOF page. Download them while that page publishes them;
• a note of what the file is and why you dated it.

With OpenSSL the check looks like this (WIPO's page gives the exact steps):

openssl ts -verify -data file -in file.tsr -CAfile wipo_cachain.pem -untrusted WIPO_TSA.crt

Do not discard a token because the service closed. Its date is the one that matters, and a new timestamp taken today cannot move that date back. What a new timestamp can do is add a second, independent witness that the same file existed now, which is useful if you worry about losing access to the old certificates.

For something new

The method is the same one WIPO PROOF used: date the fingerprint, keep the file.

1. Open the checker and choose the file: a design, a lab notebook export, source code, a draft. It never leaves your device; only its SHA-256 fingerprint is sent.
2. Seal it. The fingerprint is timestamped under RFC 3161 by an independent authority, anchored to Bitcoin, and written on an append-only public ledger. You get a permanent record page and a receipt.
3. Keep the original file exactly as it was. Anyone you later show it to recomputes the fingerprint and checks the date with the open-source verifier, with our servers switched off.

Programs and AI agents do the same in one call: POST /api/certifications/hash with the SHA-256, or notarize_hash over MCP. Free, no account.

What a timestamp does not do

It proves that these exact bytes existed at that moment. It is not a patent or a copyright registration, it does not show that an idea is new or who invented it, and it does not decide ownership. Patent grace periods and the weight of such evidence differ by country; for those questions, ask an IP professional where you file. The limits are written out here.

Date a file now or read how fingerprint timestamping works. Free, no account, and the file stays with you.