Altcoin News: China Leads in Blockchain Patents

March 15, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

World Intellectual Property Organization: in 2018, 1,060 patents for the development of the blockchain were granted.

As the blockchain technology becomes more and more popular, many companies seek to acquire as many patents as possible for its development.

The Hard Fork team has launched a research project that included a study of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website. Exploring the frequency of the term blockchain, block chain, Bitcoin, virtual currencies, virtual currency, digital currencies, digital currency, digital token, and smart contract, they called 2018 the best in obtaining patents for the blockchain — 1060 patents were issued in the past year.

In 2017, the same figure was 971. It is noteworthy that in 2017, the price of Bitcoin reached a peak, while the whole of 2018 was decreasing. Patents for blockchain-related projects began to appear in 2012 — 241 of them were issued.

Regarding geography, China leads as the country with the most blockchain patents. Overall, China has 790 approved patents, and the United States ranks second from 762.

It seems that Europe is inferior in this respect since the UK is the only European country in the top ten with 26 approved patents.

From the perspective of the organizations who have the most patents, nChain Holdings ( the company Craig Ra yta — Ed.. ) Is the most successful. It is based in London but has patents approved in other jurisdictions, such as India and Australia.

IBM ranked second on the list with 119 patents. Then follow Mastercard (111), Coinplug (84) and Alibaba (60).

The largest number of patents among individuals is Craig Wright, the chief researcher of nChain holding. He has 95 patents.

The researchers found some discrepancy between the popularity of blockchain and cryptocurrency patents: 2,127 out of 2,747 patients had the term “blockchain” in their description, while only 260 had cryptocurrency, virtual currency, or digital currency.