Alibaba Group dominates controversial blockchain patents space
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, together with its Ant Financial subsidiary, is leading the way when it comes to blockchain patent applications.
That’s according to the 2019 Global Blockchain Enterprise Patent Rankings, produced by incoPat and IPRDaily.
Alibaba and Ant Financial, which is responsible for the Alipay mobile payments service, topped the list with 1,505 public patent applications across 16 countries, including China, the US, Canada, Singapore, South Korea, Mexico, India and Australia.
And the pair had filed 2,344 blockchain-related patent applications up until 17th April 2020, putting them some way ahead of their rivals. These were focused on commercial use cases, such as payment, finance, insurance and security.
nChain
Also making the list is nChain, whose chief scientist is controversial Satoshi Nakamoto claimant Craig Wright.
Yesterday, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin took a veiled swipe at Wright over his blockchain patent portfolio. “If you're bragging about how many "blockchain patents" your country/company/organisation has, you don't understand blockchains,” Buterin tweeted.
Critics argue that patent portfolios go against the open source nature of blockchain. But Coingeek founder and Wright’s associate Calvin Ayre was quick to respond, claiming that Buterin didn’t understand the technology.
“Your tech has been used for more scams in the ICO shitecoin storm than the world has ever seen. History will not be kind. Patents on the other hand are a real thing,” he commented.
Ah, the crazy, mixed up world of crypto/blockchain. You’ve gotta love it!
