diff --git a/nimue/Cargo.toml b/nimue/Cargo.toml
index c6bfce1..d479319 100644
--- a/nimue/Cargo.toml
+++ b/nimue/Cargo.toml
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ license = "BSD-3-Clause"
 zeroize = { version = "1.6.0", features = ["zeroize_derive"] }
 rand = { version = "0.8", features = ["getrandom"] }
 digest = "^0.10.7"
+serde = "^1.0"
 # used as default hasher for the prover
 keccak = { version = "0.1.4"}
 log = "0.4.20"
diff --git a/nimue/src/iopattern.rs b/nimue/src/iopattern.rs
index 939e8d0..a2ea47f 100644
--- a/nimue/src/iopattern.rs
+++ b/nimue/src/iopattern.rs
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ use std::marker::PhantomData;
 
 use super::errors::IOPatternError;
 use super::hash::{DuplexHash, Unit};
+use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
 /// This is the separator between operations in the IO Pattern
 /// and as such is the only forbidden character in labels.
@@ -34,7 +35,7 @@ const SEP_BYTE: &str = "\0";
 /// The struct [`IOPattern`] guarantees the creation of a valid IO Pattern string, whose lengths are coherent with the types described in the protocol. No information about the types themselves is stored in an IO Pattern.
 /// This means that [`Merlin`][`crate::Merlin`] or [`Arthur`][`crate::Arthur`] instances can generate successfully a protocol transcript respecting the length constraint but not the types. See [issue #6](https://github.com/arkworks-rs/nimue/issues/6) for a discussion on the topic.
 
-#[derive(Clone)]
+#[derive(Clone, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
 pub struct IOPattern<H = crate::DefaultHash, U = u8>
 where
     U: Unit,
diff --git a/nimue/src/merlin.rs b/nimue/src/merlin.rs
index fca84da..0f4860c 100644
--- a/nimue/src/merlin.rs
+++ b/nimue/src/merlin.rs
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ use super::{DefaultHash, DefaultRng, IOPatternError};
 /// it is seeded by a cryptographic random number generator (by default, [`rand::rngs::OsRng`]).
 ///
 /// Every time the prover's sponge is squeeze, the state of the sponge is ratcheted, so that it can't be inverted and the randomness recovered.
+#[derive(Clone)]
 pub(crate) struct ProverRng<R: RngCore + CryptoRng> {
     /// The sponge that is used to generate the random coins.
     pub(crate) sponge: Keccak,
@@ -88,6 +89,7 @@ where
 /// Unless otherwise specified,
 /// [`Merlin`] is set to work over bytes with [`DefaultHash`] and
 /// rely on the default random number generator [`DefaultRng`].
+#[derive(Clone)]
 pub struct Merlin<H = DefaultHash, U = u8, R = DefaultRng>
 where
     U: Unit,