Report: Chinese E-Commerce Giant JD.com Has Applied for Over 200 Blockchain Patents

Published at: May 21, 2019

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has applied for over 200 blockchain patents, according to a report by Securities Daily News on May 20.

The report also notes that major e-commerce competitor Alibaba has applied for 262 blockchain patents, and Chinese internet titans Tencent and Baidu have applied for 80 and 50 such patents, respectively, as recorded by the Intellectual Property Center of China Information and Communication.

According to interpretation of the data provided by Intellectual Property Center of China Information and Communication, JD.com was in first place for “global blockchain patent strength,” with Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu coming it at second, seventh, and fifteenth place, respectively.

The report also notes that China is the global forerunner in blockchain applications. From 2013 to 2018, China filed 4,435 blockchain patent applications, which is 48% of global blockchain patent filings, as per the "Blockchain Patent Situation White Paper (Version 1.0)" published by the official website for China Telecom.

The runner-up in patent numbers was the United States, which purportedly filed for 1,833 blockchain patents in total, occupying the global patent space by 21%.

Securities Daily said that, with a breakdown of patent filings by industry, companies accounted for 75% of applicants, vastly outnumbering the quantity filed by research institutions, individuals, and government agencies. Out of this 75%, the report noted that the majority of companies that filed were internet-related.

The Intellectual Property Center of China Information and Communication also notes that intellectual property infringements have been an issue in the past for Chinese blockchain patents, and reportedly advises:

“It is recommended that the government do a good job in industry supervision and supervision and patent quality improvement. Enterprises should raise awareness of intellectual property protection and risk prevention, avoid blind investment in the blockchain field, apply for low-value patents, and avoid future blockchains. There have been a large number of infringement lawsuits in the field.”

JD.com released a blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform JD Blockchain Open Platform in 2018, which allows organizations to streamline blockchain creation and run smart contracts, as per the Cointelegraph report. JD.com has also helped create institutes for blockchain research, such as the Smart City Research Institute and a blockchain research lab.

Tags
Blockchain
United States
China
Internet
Alibaba
E-Commerce
Patents
Baas
Baidu
Related Posts
Alibaba Files US Patent for Blockchain Domain Name Management System
Chinese online retail giant Alibaba has applied for a United States patent entitled “Domain Name Management Scheme for Cross-Chain Interactions in Blockchain Systems.” Alibaba filed its latest application on Aug. 15 in a continuation of an application filed in November 2018. According to the filing, Alibaba intends to patent a system that uses what they call a “unified blockchain domain name” (UBCDN) in order to denote and share information. In the system, Alibaba proposes to use a computing system to generate a UBCDN message which contains a blockchain domain name and a chain identifier that is paired with that name. …
Blockchain / Aug. 15, 2019
IBM Triples Number of Blockchain Patents in US Since Last Year
Tech giant IBM has tripled the number of blockchain patents secured in the United States since last year, currently boasting over 100 active patent families. That makes IBM’s growth in US patents the largest of last year, according to a report by crypto-related news site BeinCrypto on July 16. According to data gathered by Yuval Halevi, co-founder of crypto and blockchain PR company GuerillaBuzz, IBM’s number of active patent families dwarfs other notable corporations. This includes some primary tech companies, such as Intel, Microsoft, and Dell Technologies: “In just 1 year the number of IBM blockchain patents has grown by …
Blockchain / July 17, 2019
Chinese Regulator Approves First 197 Blockchain Firms, Including Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu
China’s cyberspace administration has released the first list — 197 companies long — of registered blockchain service providers, according to their March 30 notice. Chinese initiatives by internet giants such as Baidu Blockchain Engine, Alibaba Cloud Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), Tencent BaaS (TBaaS) and the BaaS platform owned by e-commerce giant JD.com appear on the list. Financial institutions such as the China Zheshang Bank and Ping An Insurance Company are also included. Some less-known companies such as blockchain-enabled supply chain management service VeChain and parcel delivery service ParcelX are present on the list as well. The article also notes that no institution …
Blockchain / April 3, 2019
China’s Alibaba Cloud Expands Enterprise Blockchain Offering to Global Markets
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, is enhancing its Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering outside China, the company announced in a press release on Oct. 24. Following the roll out of its BaaS platform in China, Alibaba Cloud will expand its enterprise-level blockchain service to major international markets including Europe, the U.S., and South East Asia. Based on two blockchain network implementations — Hyperledger Fabric and Ant Blockchain — Alibaba Cloud’s BaaS is now targeting global enterprises, enabling them to set up secure and solid ecosystem for blockchain developments, the press release notes. The blockchain solution …
Adoption / Oct. 25, 2018
Alibaba Files Patent for Blockchain System That Allows ‘Administrative Intervention’
Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba has filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a blockchain-based system that allows a third-party administrator to intervene in a smart contract in case of illegal activities. The USPTO published the patent application on Oct. 4. A smart contract is a computer protocol designed to digitally verify or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts are self-executing, with the terms of the agreement between the parties being directly written into lines of code. The patent document, which was initially filed in March, describes a blockchain-powered transaction method …
Blockchain / Oct. 5, 2018