Abstract: Since the birth of Bitcoin, more than 2,000 patents have been filed and nearly 50% have come from China, and patent applications have become prefabricated weapons for many tech giants and forward-looking individuals in the future of the blockchain world.
The current hot blockchain is attracting more and more practitioners.Some people engaged in mining chip research and development, someone engaged in mining machine sales, someone engaged in currency, someone engaged in speculative coins ... ... all kinds of roles everything .
In this blockchain for profit, some people have ancestors began patent layout.
First, the giants rush to layout blockchain patent, only for the decisive battle in the future
Recently, according to News.Bitcoin reports, the "Bitcoin Patent Report" shows that from the beginning of Bitcoin to the present, there are over 2000 related patents, with nearly 50% from China; the slow growth in the previous period and the exponential growth in 2015 The report shows that the top ten bitcoin patents, the Bank of America won the 45 patents, Alibaba ranked fourth, IBM ranked fifth, MasterCard ranked eighth, the same list of Chinese companies also cloth than Network Technology (No. 7), Hangzhou United Technology (No. 9) and Hangzhou Cloud Network Technology (No. 10).
The latest release of the "2017 Global Blockchain Enterprise Patent Rankings" shows that the growth rate of China's blockchain patents far exceeds the United States, leading the world in which Alibaba ranked first in the total 49, all of these patents from Ant gold service technology laboratory.This is interpreted as Alibaba will be 'all in' blockchain, and even rumors that Alibaba will issue their own virtual currency.
In fact, due to the lag of patent applications, the number of patents currently reported and the number of patents are different from the actual number of applications, and it can be seen that blockchain patents are showing explosive growth.
Patent applications have become prefabricated weapons for many tech giants and forward-looking individuals in the future of the blockchain world.
Second, the status of blockchain patent layout: financial, application, security direction of the hottest
In fact, in addition to the giants' early placement of blockchain patents, there is another group that has long been involved in the layout of blockchain patents, which are proprietary investors (patent rogues). In fact, they are more smelly than tech giants , More efficient enforcement of patent applications in the group.
Below we pass the number of patent speculators on the layout of the patent, take a look at the current status of blockchain patent layout.
Currently, Nchain, a company founded by Craig Wright, an Australian who claims to be 'Nakamoto', was a speculation firm specializing in blockchain patent applications. As of January 25, 2018, Nchain has been based in the United Kingdom 156 patent applications, but part of the patent application has been terminated before the disclosure, the other part has not yet been open, so it is not clear the exact content of the patent protection, but from the patent name has been allowed to view some simple conclusions can be made .
Most of the patents can not see their specific technology from the name, and can generally see that the patents in the distribution direction are generally distributed in three aspects: financial transaction, security and application.
At present, financial patents mainly focus on the digital currency, which is also the focus of the current blockchain patent layout. In addition to considering the security and encryption in the blockchain communication, the security aspect also considers personal device security ; Applications mainly use scenarios outside the economic scenario, the current view mainly includes the Internet of things and logic gates.
In China, there are two main types of applications for blockchain patents, one is technology enterprise and the other is scientific research institution of university. The total number of patent applications for blockchain has been disclosed in China Patent Office is about 1057, of which There were 1,082 open and yet unlicensed invention patent applications, 16 utility model patents granted and 13 invention patents granted.
Country blockchain patents are mainly concentrated in five directions: data storage, data verification, authentication, decentralization and sharing system.
Compared with the block layout at home and abroad in the patent research found that most of the current patent applications are mainly concentrated in the financial, application, security 3 directions.
Third, the blockchain patents, decisive blockchain the future of the world's prefabricated weapons
According to the White Paper on China's Blockchain Technology and Application Development, the future of blockchain will have broad application prospects in various fields such as financial services, supply chain management, intelligent manufacturing, culture and entertainment, medical and health, etc. Corresponding to a wide range of application prospects Of the blockbuster patent has the potential value.
Although we are not yet able to assess the market value of a blockchain patent in the future, we can make some predictions from the patented layout of the giants and speculators.
1, Blockchain Patents is a prefabricated weapon in the future blockchain world.
As the cornerstone of value internet, blockchain is changing the world.Undoubtedly, with the application of blockchain technology more and more, the patent of blockchain will inevitably permeate every corner of the blockchain world and the value of patent will inevitably Higher and higher.At the same time, blockchain patent will become a powerful weapon for the competition between enterprises and the main body in the blockchain world, and the industry has the right to patent the blockchain.
Blockchain patents are powerful weapons against speculators
Do you remember the well-known company of 'Wise Inventors', which now operate a total of 1,276 well-known 'shell' companies with 30 to 60,000 patents worldwide as of May 2011, including nearly 8,000 U.S. patents and With over 3,000 U.S. pending patent applications, the patented technology covers almost all industries, from computer hardware to biomedicine, from consumer electronics to nanotechnology.
The strategy of 'Wise Inventing' is to obtain a patent exclusive license by collecting funds in a large amount from the source of research and development, and laying the foundation for the commercialization of the patent right in the next step.
According to the relevant data, 'Wisdom invention' company has benefitted from the patent license 2 billion US dollars.
In the future, enterprises that own the blockchain patent pool will have more advantages and will not be afraid of intimidation by patent speculators.
In the era of blockchain, enterprises should not forget to do a good job of patent layout while ensuring technological innovation and business innovation in the blockchain so as to ensure their own enterprises get more favorable conditions in the future competition in the blockchain world.