BLOCKCHAIN – Disruption or Hype?

Nigel Clarke Vashe Kanesarajah Ed White

Head of Patent Information Research Director, Client Advocacy Director, Patent Analytics
European Patent Office Derwent Derwent
A QUICK BRIEFING
WHAT IS “THE” BLOCKCHAIN?
CAN’T BE CHANGED
• Transactions are added to the
chain as a block of data
• New blocks contain encrypted
information concerning the
previous block, therefore no block
can be changed without changing
the entire chain
• All data in the chain is therefore
permanently recorded
Permanent, Decentralised, Open Record – the “distributed ledger”
NO AUTHORITIVE VERSION
• Versions of the blockchain are
distributed around the cloud
• No central version is held to be
authoritative over another
• “Hacking” the blockchain would
require changing it in every
location
TRANSPARENT
• Anyone can review the entire
blockchain
• Makes the blockchain verifiable
• Creates an ecosystem where all
actors are aware of the present
state of the blockchain, and can
add to it
WHY WAS IT DEVELOPED? WHAT IS IT FOR?

• To solve a basic issue in digital currency – the “double spending” problem:

How can you prevent the same digital currency token being spent more than once?
How do you know how much currency anyone has?
How do you know who has spent what, and where it now resides?

• Required a completely secure, un-editable register of transactions that everyone can access – the
blockchain

• Created in some mystery – the original developer(s) use the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, the original
source of the open bitcoin cryptocurrency

• The technology/technique has spawned an entire cryptocurrency industry, with many separate blockchain
implementations with different flavours and rules

• Importantly, the principles of the distributed ledger has uses outside of cryptocurrencies…
WHAT DOES THE BLOCKCHAIN PATENT
LANDSCAPE LOOK LIKE?
Background

 Material already presented:

 Yann Menière (Chief Economist) at the EPO’s Blockchain conference in
December 2018,
 Geert Boedt at Search Matters 8th May 2019
 https://www.epo.org/learning-events/events/conferences/search-
matters/programme.html
 Nigel Clarke (Patent Information Research) PIUG 7th May 2019
 https://www.piug.org/an19program

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study 7

 Blockchain patent families

 Blockchain patenting took off in 2015, since then we encounter high publication rates, and steady growth of
granted patents.

2500

2000

1500
Count of patent families

1st priority year

1st publication year
1st grant year
1000

500

0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Note: 2018 data incomplete (publications until 10/2018), decrease in priority filing in 2018 is due to 18 month time lag until publication.

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Blockchain EPC patent families

 Similar trend with EPC patent families

 Almost 4/5 of EPC families include an EP filing
160

140

without EP
filing
120 22%
Count of patent families

100

1st publication year

80
1st priority year with EP filing
78%
1st application year

60

40
EP filings share
(EPC patent families,
1st publication years 2008-2016)
20

0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Note: EPC is a patent family that has at least one filing at EPO or any other of the 38 EPC member states. Not all EP filings are already published for 2017 (or 2018)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Patent applications per patent authority (2013-2018)

 High growth of Chinese patent applications since 2016.

 Steady growing rate of Blockchain patent application in US, WO and KR.
1600

1400

1200
Count of patent families

1000
CN
US
800
WO
EP
600 KR

400

200

0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
1st publication year*

Note: Per patent family, only one patent application per patent authority is considered. * 2018 data incomplete (publications until 10/2018)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Patent applications of top 10 applicants (2013-2018)

 IBM (US) leads in 2018 followed by COINPLUG (KR) and ALIBABA (CN).

90

80

70

IBM (US)
Count of patent families

60 ALIBABA (CN)
COINPLUG (KR)
50 BOE TECHNOLOGY (CN)
MASTERCARD (US)

40 BANK OF AMERICA (US)

CHINA UNICOM (CN)
NCHAIN (GB)
30
VISA (US)
FUZAMEI TECHNOLOGY (CN)
20

10

0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

1st publication year* * 2018 data incomplete (publications until 10/2018)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Patent families with granted patents of top 10 applicants (2013-2018)

 High number of patent families with granted patents for Korean company COINPLUG probably due to
different granting speeds in the patent systems (KR vs. US or EP)
50

45

40

COINPLUG
35
Count of patent families

IBM
VISA
30
MODERNITY FINANCIAL HOLDINGS
25 GUARDTIME
MASTERCARD
20 METAPS PLUS
ACCENTURE
15 PAYPAL
ONECONNECT
10

0
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

1st grant year*

* 2018 data incomplete (publications until 10/2018)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Markets & Jurisdictions – Where are Blockchain patents filed?

 40% of all Blockchain patents are filed in China, EPO is fourth, after US and WO

TW BR DE SG
GB
2% 1% 1% 1%
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 CA IN
2%
2% 2%
JP
CN 2417 2%
AU
2%

KR
US 1232 CN
4%
40%
EP
6%

WO 897

WO
EP 344 15%

KR 276 US
20%

Top 5 patent authorities with Blockchain patent applications 2008-2018

Patent families counting by 1st publication year Distribution of patent applications
(per family only 1 application per patent authority is counted) (patent families counting by 1st publication
year)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Geographical origins (whole dataset, 4096 patent families)

 Most patent families have their origin in US and China (first priority filings)

CN 2198
US 1089
KR 221
Europe = 259 GB 104
WO 104
(EP + EPC) EP 73
JP 72
TW 55
AU 45
104 41 DE 41
FR 26
26 IN 26
1089 72 ZA 6

2198 221 BE
CA
4
4
26 55 UA 4
RU 3
CZ 2
ES 2
IL 2
IT 2
LU 2
PH 2
SG 2

45 BR
EA
1
1
HK 1
HU 1
NL 1
SE 1

Mapamundi with priority country filings of all patents of the dataset

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Geographical origins (WO patent applications, 897 patent families)

 Most WO patent applications have their origin in US (first priority filings) followed by Europe

US 450
Europe = 155 CN 92
(EP + EPC) WO 91
GB 68
KR 56
EP 44
68 DE 29
29 JP 19
AU 14
450 92 56
IN 10
FR 7
ZA 4
LU 2
UA 2
BE 1
CA 1
ES 1
HU 1
NL 1
RU 1
SE 1
SG 1

Mapamundi with priority country filings of WO patents

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Geographical origins (EP applications, 344 patent families)

 Most EP patent applications have their origin in US (first priority filings)

US 171
Europe = 116 EP 59
(EP + EPC) GB 23
WO 20
DE 15
23 FR 12
15 CN 10
12 JP 8
KR 6
171 10 AU 4
IN 4
IT 2
CZ 1
ES 1
HK 1
HU 1
IL 1
NL 1
SE 1
SG 1
ZA 1

Mapamundi with priority country filings of WO patents (numbering +10 patent families, without EP and WO patents)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Blockchain WO applications and the EPO*

EPO is the second most selected PCT receiving office:

Other
CN
5%

US EPO is the preferred International Search Authority

KR
6%
50%
for PCT search reports:
Direct filing
(IB)
10%
EP
13% Other
CN EP
5%
32%

KR
More than a third have an EP member in the family: 20%

US
No EP member in 27%
family; 90; 63%

EP member in
family; 177; 66%

* 1st publication years 2008-2016. For recent PCT applications EP members cannot yet be identified

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Geographical origins of patent families (IP3 and IP5 patent families)

 Most IP5 and IP3 patent families have chosen EP as priority office after US

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

17
US
112

4
EP
15

WO
10

GB
9

JP
9

3
CN
9

1
KR
9

IP5 (US, EP, JP, CN, KR) IP3 (Any three out of US, EP, JP, CN, KR)

Note: Top 10 authorities (first priority country of international patent families IP3 and IP5)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Top Applicants (Worldwide, EP)

Top applicants worldwide Top applicants EP

Patent Patent
Worldwide Applicants EP Applicants
families families
IBM (US) 111 VISA (US) 16
ALIBABA (CN) 88 MASTERCARD (US) 14
COINPLUG (KR) 88 SIEMENS (DE) 12
BOE TECHNOLOGY (CN) 61 ACCENTURE (IE) 10
MASTERCARD (US) 51 NOKIA (FI) 9
BANK OF AMERICA (US) 46 NCHAIN (GB) 7
CHINA UNICOM (CN) 46 SONY (JP) 7
NCHAIN (GB) 45 BT (GB) 6
VISA (US) 41 GEMALTO (NL) 6
FUZAMEI TECHNOLOGY (CN) 36 NEC (JP) 6

Top 10 applicants by patent families

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Top Inventors (Worldwide, EP)

Top inventors worldwide Top inventors EP

Patent
Inventor Affiliation* Inventor Patent families Affiliation*
families
HONG JAY WU 88 COINPLUG (KR)
FALK RAINER 11 SIEMENS (DE)
UHR JOON SUN 85 COINPLUG (KR)

SONG JOO HAN 66 COINPLUG (KR) DAVIS STEVEN

7 MASTERCARD (US)
CHARLES

BEIJING EUROPE CHAIN TECHNOLOGY DANIEL JOSHUA 6 BT (GB)

TAN ZHIYONG 52 (CN) / BEIJING RUI ZHUO XITONG
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (CN)
DUCATEL GERY 6 BT (GB)

GIORDANO
6 ACCENTURE (IE)
SHENZHEN GOLO CHELIAN DATA GIUSEPPE
LIU XIN 49
TECHNOLOGY (CN)
SAVANAH STEPHANE 6 NCHAIN (UK)

SHENZHEN GOLO CHELIAN DATA

LIU JUN 39
TECHNOLOGY (CN) WRIGHT CRAIG
6 NCHAIN (UK)
STEVEN

BEIJING RUI ZHUO XITONG

ZHANG YONG 38
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (CN) BULDAS AHTO 5 GUARDTIME (UK)

WU SIJIN 36 FUZAMEI TECHNOLOGY (CN)

INNOGY INNOVATION
STÖCKER CARSTEN 5
(DE)
HUANG BUTIAN 33 YUNPHANT (CN)

LU CHENGYE 31 CHINA CHAIN TECHNOLOGY (CN) VIALE EMMANUEL 5 ACCENTURE (IE)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study *Inventors company affiliation by the time of the patent filing (may have changed over the time)
Top patents

Top patents by citations received Top patents by family size

LEGAL
YEAR* APPLICANT TITLE & NUMBER CITATIONS ** FAMILY LEGAL
STATUS YEAR* APPLICANT TITLE & NUMBER
MEMBERS STATUS
Healthcare transaction validation
via blockchain proof-of-work, Applied but not
2014 NANTWORKS (US) 74 Registry and automated management method for
systems and methods yet granted Granted
(US20150332283) 2016 NCHAIN (UK) blockchain-enforced smart contracts 12
(EP)
(EP3257191)

System and method for securely

receiving and counting votes in an Systems and methods for providing block chain-
2014 BLOCKTECH (US) 63 Granted (US) BLACK GOLD Granted
election 2016 based multifactor personal identity verification 11
COIN (US) (US, AU)
(US9836908) (US9985964)

Determining a common secret for the secure

Document tracking on a distributed exchange of information and hierarchical, Granted
TORONTO DOMINION Applied but not 2016 NCHAIN (UK) 11
2015 ledger 46 deterministic cryptographic keys (EP)
BANK (CA) yet granted (EP3364598)
(US20170048216)

Secure multiparty loss resistant storage and

Applied
Data analytic and security transfer of cryptographic keys for blockchain
but not
MODERNITY mechanism for implementing a hot 2016 NCHAIN (UK) based systems in conjunction with a wallet 11
2014 44 Granted (US) yet
FINANCIAL (TW) wallet service management system
granted
(US9672499) (EP3259724)

Method and system for integration of market

Generalized entity network MASTERCARD exchange and issuer processing for blockchain- Granted
ENT TECHNOLOGIES 2015 10
2012 translation (GENT) 41 Granted (US) (US) based transactions (US)
(US)
(US9876775) (EP3298550)

*First priority year ** Citations received, patent family counting

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 Technology fields (main CPC, group level)

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Payment architectures, schemes or protocols (G06Q-020)

Cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communication (H04L-009)

Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security (H04L-063)

Security arrangements for protecting computers (G06F-021)

Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies (G06Q-040)

Commerce, e.g. shopping or e-commerce (G06Q-030)

Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods (G06F-017)

Data processing systems or methods - Administration; Management (G06Q-010)

Network-specific arrangements or communication protocols supporting networked applications (H04L-067)

Patent families by Top 10 Main CPC groups

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study 22

Top players by Technology fields

Payment architectures, schemes or Network architectures or network

protocols communication protocols for network
Applicant Patent families security
COINPLUG (KR) 43 Applicant Patent families
TONGFUDUN TECHNOLOGY
MASTERCARD (US) 29 (CN) 13
BANK OF AMERICA (US) 27
Cryptographic mechanisms or BANK OF AMERICA (US) 11
VISA (US) 22 cryptographic arrangements for secret or IBM (US) 10
IBM (US) 20 secure communication
ALIBABA (CN) 8
Applicant Patent families
ACCENTURE (IE) 6
NCHAIN (GB) 20
IBM (US) 14
VISA (US) 14
COINPLUG (KR) 13
Security arrangements for protecting GUARDTIME (GB) 9
computers Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies
Applicant Patent families Applicant Patent families
COINPLUG (KR) 13 FUZAMEI TECHNOLOGY
(CN) 12
BUNDESDRUCKEREI (DE) 9
COINPLUG (KR) 8
ALIBABA (CN) 8
IBM (US) 8
BT (GB) 7
BOE TECHNOLOGY (CN) 4
ERICSSON (SE) 5
FACTOM (US) 4

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study 23

Patent citation - Who is influencing whom?

Node map is limited to Blockchain applicants with min. 10 patent families and min. 4 citations

Green circle =total Blockchain patent portfolio of the applicant (families)

Arrow = Arrow and number indicates how many patents cite the applicant where the arrow is directed at

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study 24

 Blockchain – Evolution 2018

400

349
350 334

300
269

247
250 242
Count of patent families

226 224

200
200 Earliest publication date (ALL)
177
Earliest publication date (CN)
163 162

150
133 133
126 127

109

100 88 89
82 82

50

0
January February March April May June July August September October
First publication date

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

 IP3 and IP5 patent families by 1st publication year

60

52

50

40
Count of patent families

34

30 IP3
IP5

21

20 18

12 12 12
10
10 8
7
6
5
4
3 3
2
1 1 1
0
0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

1st publication year

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Blockchain – WO applications

 Most Blockchain related WO applications have first filings (priority) in the US

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

US 450
Patent
WO Applicants
CN 92 families
NCHAIN (GB) 44
WO 91
MASTERCARD (US) 43
GB 68 COINPLUG (KR) 36
VISA (US) 35
KR 56
WALMART (US) 24
EP 44 ALIBABA (CN) 23
DE 29 NOKIA (FI) 23
CLOUDMINDS (CN) 18
JP 19
NEC (JP) 17
AU 14 INTEL (US) 16

IN 10
Top 10 WO applicants

Top 10 authorities (first priority country of WO application)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

Blockchain – EP applications

 Most Blockchain related EP applications have first filings (priority) in the US

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

US

Patent
EP EP Applicants
families
VISA (US) 16
GB
MASTERCARD (US) 14
WO SIEMENS (DE) 12
ACCENTURE (IE) 10
DE
NOKIA (FI) 9

FR NCHAIN (GB) 7
SONY (JP) 7
CN BT (GB) 6
GEMALTO (NL) 6
JP
NEC (JP) 6
KR

Top 10 EP applicants
AU

Top 10 authorities (first priority country of EP application)

European Patent Office – Blockchain patent landscape study

RECENT EVENTS – in the midst of a bubble?

60% of Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Since November, 44 new blockchain Approx. 200 new entrants per month
inventions have published in the last inventions published per working day since November
300 days

Source: Derwent World Patents Index™; generic Blockchain, Distributed Ledger search string
WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN BEING USED FOR?
• Killer application is Financial Technology –
using traditional currencies for payments and
transactions

• Cryptocurrencies is now a subset of fintech

Contracts
• Other mentioned uses of blockchain
technology:

Fintech • Contract management

• Gaming – likely an offshoot of mobile
payment tech
• Social networking – e.g. privacy issues
• Healthcare – for example prescription
management; currently a small field
Healthcare
• Much (most?) of blockchain not specific to an
Mobile Gaming
industry or use
Source: Derwent World Patents Index™ “Use” field; ThemeScape application
Your Questions
vasheharan.kanesarajah@clarivate.com
ed.white@clarivate.com
nclarke@epo.org
derwent.com