Tech behemothic IBM cemented its patent leadership in the Usa, with over 9,000 received patents, including in artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, in 2019.

With the 9,626 patents secured, IBM became the company that received the near patents in the United states of americaever and the leader on the list for the 27th consecutive year, tech-focused media outlet Database Trends and Applications reported on Feb. four.

Of the 9,626 patents, IBM secured over 1,800 patents in AI, more than than 2,500 patents in deject engineering science and led in blockchain patents received.

IBM's patent potency

Back in July 2019, Cointelegraph reported that IBM had tripled the number of blockchain patents secured in the U.South. since 2018, boasting over 100 agile patent families at the time. That fabricated IBM'south growth in U.S. patents the largest of 2018.

At the fourth dimension, Yuval Halevi, co-founder of crypto and blockchain PR company GuerillaBuzz, commented: "In only 1 year the number of IBM blockchain patents has grown past 300%. When ane of the largest companies in the globe (366,000 employees) spends so much of their resources on developing a blockchain department, this tells a lot nearly the market place potential."

Simply recently, IBM was awarded a patent for the development of a "self-aware token" designed to track and tape events of offline transactions. Concluding year, IBM added to its stack of blockchain patents an awarding that aims to improve the security of permissioned blockchain networks and an application that focuses on database management using blockchain, among others.

Blockchain patent boxing continues

The news comes amid the so-called boxing for the blockchain dominance betwixt the U.Southward. and China. As an analysis for Cointelegraph published in late November 2019 showed, China was already winning the Intellectual Property artillery race against the U.S.

The authors of the analysis examined blockchain-related patents that had been granted from Jan 2014 to October 2019 by China'southward patent office, the National Intellectual Holding Administration, or CNIPA, and the U.Southward. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO. During that period, the CNIPA awarded 2,218 blockchain patents compared to 227 past the USPTO.

Meanwhile, the NIPA in China was fix to issue clarified guidelines for blockchain patent applications on Feb. 1.