Blockchain Payment IP

CryptoBriefing recently published an article on MasterCard's blockchain IP, "Mastercard Is Grabbing All The Blockchain IP It Can Handle"

The IP landscape around blockchain payment IP is actually pretty interesting. I am going to limit the analysis here to a subset of blockchain technologies - specifically those involving payments (understanding that blockchain technology can have applicability far broader than just payment/financial applications). Digging into this analysis, we see that Mastercard and big banks BoA and RBC show up in the top five. NChain, a leader in blockchain technology development and research is, not surprisingly, in the mix at the top.

There is a clear corporate focus for Mastercard. The article makes a compelling point that although Mastercard is a leader in legacy banking/credit card industry, the focus on future public/distributed ledger technologies is apparent.

There are more than 700M Mastercard payment cards spread all around the world. The company found success in legacy banking, but the number of patents filed demonstrate that the company is already getting ready for a future in blockchain.

This analysis represents global patent filings. Interestingly, the distribution of patent holders is quite global as well. In the top tier, we see:

• US - Mastercard, Bank of America, FMR, Paypal

• UK - NChain

• Canada - RBC

• Korea - CoinPlug

• China - Now Payment, STIT, Jiangsu Pay Egis

This is certainly a diverse and growing field showing participation from a handful of financial stalwarts as well as technology specific companies and stratups from across the globe.

Interested in further reading on this topic? Check out this ComputerWorld article, "MIT, Stanford and others to build blockchain payments network to rival VisaNet" to get an idea of some up and coming tech to look for in the future (no IP data to report on yet!).