The largest financial and technological corporations Alibaba and IBM have become world leaders in the number of applications for patents related to blockchain-development. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by iPR Daily, a publication specializing in the field of intellectual property.
As stated in the report, the Chinese giant Alibaba took the first line of the original rating - in total the company filed 90 patent applications related to the blockchain. Not much behind is IBM - the US corporation filed 89 applications. Mastercard and Bank of America took the third and fourth places - 80 and 53 applications respectively.
The report was based on information from various databases of China, the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea, as well as the International Patent Organization of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as of August 10.
It is noteworthy that the People's Bank of China (NSC), which took the fifth place, is one of the few central banks in the world, actively showing interest in the blockchain industry - the organization filed 44 patent applications, many of which are related to the planned launch of its own digital currency.
Among other notable companies on the iPR Daily list, which have filed at least 20 applications for patents in the field of blockchain, it is worth noting Tencent, Accenture, Ping An Insurance, Bitmain, Intel, Visa, Sony, Google and the State Electricity Grid Corporation of China.
Recall that in June, the laboratory of the study of digital currencies under the NSC filed two patent applications, each of which described a certain aspect of the system that combines the key functions of the crypto currency and the current monetary system. At that time, the number of submitted applications related to the blockchain was already 41.
As previously reported, according to the data of the researchers of the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS Rostpatent) and the Vnesheconombank's Competence Center, over the past five years, 184 patent applications related to blockchain technology (10.2% of their total number) have been issued for past 6 months.