Meanwhile, China as a whole occupied 46 of the top 100 spots in the roster.
Intellectual property media IPRdaily and global patent database incoPat have released the ranking of '2020 H1 global blockchain patent applicants.' The ranking shows that Alibaba Group (BABA:NYSE) remains the first with 1,457 new patent applications in the six months through June 2020, followed by Tencent (872), Inspur (274) and IBM (251).
The ranking has slightly changed since last year. Tencent (00700:HKEX) caught up from the tenth to the second place while Chinese conglomerate Ping An dropped from the second to the sixth spot.
Alibaba's new blockchain patents come mainly from AntChain, whose name was changed from Ant Blockchain recently. Jack Ma said (link in Chinese) that this decision can be as significant as the founding of Alipay.
Despite the global economic downturn, incredible progress can be observed in terms of the number of blockchain patents. The number of Alibaba's new blockchain patents in 1H 2020 is nearly the number it achieved in the whole last year. Generally, it can be predicted that companies may double the number of new blockchain patents this year compared to that of the previous twelve-month period.
According to the published data, Chinese companies grabbed 46% of the top 100, while their American counterparts held 25% within the same period. Antigua and Barbuda, South Korea and Germany are the next names on the list.