China was the most active filer of blockchain patent applications last year as the country’s technology and financial services groups rushed to claim exclusivity on the “mutual distributed ledger” that could revolutionise finance and other supply chains.
Data collated by Thomson Reuters from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) database showed that in 2017, more than half of the 406 blockchain related patent applications were from China.
Patent applications for blockchain, whose uses include everything from cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to the tracking of Chinese chickens, trebled last year. Patents specific to cryptocurrencies — which are not included in the blockchain patent category — rose 16 per cent to 602 in 2017.
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