E-commerce titan Alibaba has overtaken IBM en route to becoming the world’s largest holder of blockchain patent applications this year.
Patent process accelerator KISSPatent reveals in a comprehensive study that blockchain patents are surging this year. The firm notes that more patents related to blockchain have been published in the first six months of 2020 than in the entire 2019. Leading the blockchain patent applications race are tech giant IBM and Alibaba, but KISSPatent highlights that the e-commerce company is definitely the one to watch out for.
“There are two companies that clearly overshadow the rest in the blockchain patent space, IBM and Alibaba. Alibaba, however, is definitely running the show. It has filed 10 times as many patents (as) IBM this year alone. One remarkable find was that Alibaba has a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, who, according to data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), owns most of Alibaba’s blockchain patents.”
The study also highlights that Alibaba’s rapid rate of introducing new blockchain-related patents is putting the company in a solid position to eventually surpass IBM in this metric.
“We mentioned at the beginning that currently IBM owns the most blockchain patent applications – but that Alibaba is catching up fast and should overtake IBM this year. This metric is important because the company that owns the most blockchain patents will probably have the most legal patent power – and companies need to own blockchain patent applications in order to get blockchain patents.”
You can read the full report here.