Text | Intellectual Property Development Research Center, State Intellectual Property Office
Blockchain is a secure and shared decentralized data ledger. In recent years, blockchain has rapidly integrated with big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and other new-generation information technologies, and its applications have been extended to digital finance, Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, supply chain management, digital asset transactions and other fields . With the increase of participants, the competition in technology, model, patent and other dimensions is becoming more and more fierce. In particular, blockchain companies attach great importance to technology research and development and patent layout, and related patent applications have experienced explosive growth, and the patent competition pattern has become increasingly fierce .
Layout of global blockchain patent applications
According to the retrieval statistics of relevant patent databases, from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2022, the number of patent authorizations in the global blockchain field was 37,595, of which 22,457 were patent authorizations in China, accounting for 59.7%; 8,950 patents were granted in the United States, accounting for 23.8%; 1,339 patents were granted in Japan, accounting for 3.6%; 976 patents were granted in South Korea, accounting for 2.6%; 604 patents were granted in Germany, accounting for 1.6%; Australian patents The number of authorized patents is 453, accounting for 1.2%; the number of patent authorizations in Singapore is 424, accounting for 1.1%, and the proportion of patent authorizations in other countries is less than 1%.
There are 1,032 patents granted in China worldwide, including 309 from the United States, accounting for 30.0%; 120 from Japan, accounting for 11.6%; and 32 from Germany, accounting for 3.1%. From the perspective of development trends, foreign patentees pay more attention to the patent layout in China. Among them, the patentees of the United States and Japan have carried out long-term patent layout in China, and the patentees of South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other countries During the year, the layout of patent applications in China was significantly accelerated.
Ranking of global blockchain patentees
The key patentees of the global blockchain technology mainly apply for invention patents. Among the top ten patentees in the world in the number of patent grants, Chinese companies have already occupied six seats. Among the top 20 patentees in terms of the number of granted patents in the world, 3 Chinese companies including Ant Group (4,740), Tencent (3,439), and Baidu (1,123) are in the first echelon, with average patent authorizations. More than 1,000 cases; 6 companies including IBM (663 cases), Ping An Technology (425 cases), China Unicom (329 cases), British Enchain (298 cases), American MasterCard (243 cases), and Hangzhou Complex Beauty (202 cases) It belongs to the second echelon, with more than 200 patent authorizations; 11 companies including Bank of America, Microsoft, and Jingrui Storage are in the third echelon, with 100-200 patent authorizations.
Ant Group ranks first in the world in the number of patent authorizations, and has the most extensive layout, with 2,292 patents in China, 898 in the United States, 242 in Singapore, 216 in Germany, 169 in Japan, 167 in South Korea, and 138 in Australia. Canada authorized 97 pieces. Among Tencent’s authorized patents, 3,345 are from China, 33 from the United States, 33 from Japan, 16 from South Korea, and 5 from Germany. Among Baidu’s patents that have been authorized, 990 are from China, 73 from Japan, 36 from the United States, 18 from South Korea, and 1 from Germany. Among the patents that IBM has been authorized, 618 are authorized by the United States, 23 by Japan, and 12 by China. Foreign companies such as Enchain in the UK, Microsoft in the US, MasterCard in the US, Accenture in Ireland, and Visa in the US, although the number of patents granted is not high, they have a relatively extensive global presence.
Figure 1 Basic layout of global blockchain patents
Patent distribution status of global blockchain patentees
The mainstream technical architecture of blockchain is divided into six first-level technical branches, including data layer, network layer, consensus layer, incentive layer, contract layer and application layer, including data structure, confidentiality mechanism, authority management, computing resources, distributed There are 18 secondary technical branches including structure, verification mechanism, network routing, consensus mechanism, incentive mechanism, smart contract, interface call, value transfer, certificate storage, and authorization management.
Among them, the application layer is mainly responsible for adapting various application scenarios of the blockchain and providing users with various services and applications. It has the largest number of patent authorizations (8,864), accounting for 23.6% of the total global patent authorizations in this field. Secondly, the number of global patent authorizations for the data layer is 4,822, accounting for 12.8%; the number of global patent authorizations for the network layer is 5,118, accounting for 13.6%; the number of global patent authorizations for the consensus layer is 6,369, accounting for 16.9%; the number of global patent authorizations for the incentive layer 5,134, accounting for 13.7%; the number of global patent authorizations at the contract level was 7,288, accounting for 19.4%.
Figure 2 Composition of Global Blockchain Patent Technology
Through the statistics of the patent authorization volume under the mainstream technology architecture layer of the blockchain, it is found that Ant Group and Tencent have taken the first place in the world in the patent authorization volume of each mainstream technology architecture layer. Among them, Ant Group has 973 data layer patents, 968 consensus layer patents, 1,315 contract layer patents, 871 application layer patents, 389 network layer patents, and 224 incentive layer patents. software, data layer, consensus layer, contract layer and application layer patent authorization amount ranks first in the world, focusing on data structure, encryption mechanism, authority management, computing resources and other related technologies. Tencent has 516 network layer patents, 621 consensus layer patents, 1170 contract layer patents, 692 application layer patents, 252 incentive layer patents, and 188 data layer patents. The number of patent authorizations for the network layer and the incentive layer ranks first in the world, and the focus is on smart contract technology.
In addition, Baidu's technology is concentrated in the contract layer and the application layer. Among them, the number of patent authorizations for the contract layer is 137, and the number of patent authorizations for the application layer is 755. The focus is on related technologies such as electronic bills. IBM's technology is concentrated in the network layer, consensus layer, incentive layer and contract layer. Among them, the number of patent authorizations for the network layer is 114, the amount of patent authorization for the consensus layer is 148, the amount of patent authorization for the incentive layer is 151, and the amount of patent authorization for the contract layer is 130. . Ping An's technology is concentrated in the consensus layer, with 241 patents authorized. The U.S. Jingrui storage technology is concentrated in the incentive layer, with 114 patents authorized. Other patentees have less than 100 granted patents at each technical architecture layer.
Figure 3 Basic Situation of Global Blockchain Mainstream Technology Architecture Layer Patent Layout
Development proposals
First, actively break through technical weak links. In particular, under the technical framework of the data layer, focus on the R&D layout of directed acyclic graph DAG, chain structure, off-chain storage and other technologies in data structure technology, for example, strengthen the expansion of DAG structure, security, parallel working methods, etc. Strengthen research on cross-chain communication expansion and security, and strengthen research on off-chain data storage. In addition, it is necessary to focus on the R&D layout of the core encryption algorithm technology in the encryption mechanism technology, improve key security, and strengthen research on the verification of node on-chain and data on-chain.
Second, strengthen the layout of core technology patents. Continue to track and pay attention to the research and development direction and patent layout of key foreign companies such as IBM, MasterCard, NChain, and COINPLUG. In particular, the research and development trends of key core technologies that restrict the development of my country's blockchain technology, such as the aforementioned directed acyclic graph DAG, chain structure, core encryption algorithm and other key technologies that urgently need breakthroughs. In addition, it is also necessary to focus on tracking the standardization process of blockchain technology and actively participate in standard formulation.
Third, improve the quality of drafting patent application documents. Although domestic applicants have a certain advantage in the number of patent applications, there are still cases where the quality of drafting of some patent application documents is low. For this reason, firstly, in the background technology part of the description, it is necessary to elaborate as much as possible the technical development context involved in the invention point, and to cite documents reflecting these background technologies. The second is to clearly record the technical problems to be solved by the technical solution of the application, and clarify the problems and shortcomings in the background technology. The third is to clearly and completely record the technical solution to the technical problem so that those skilled in the art can realize the technical solution.