Innovation Within Networks – Patent Strategies for Blockchain Technology

Purpose

Understanding a technology’s patent landscape, including patent strategies, helps organizations position themselves regarding their innovation and provides insight about a technology’s future direction. This study aims to provide an overview of the blockchain technology patenting trends and outlines an exploratory framework of patenting strategies for blockchain.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 3,234 registered patents are analyzed to determine the geographical distribution and identify key actors patenting around the globe. In addition, an empirical study consisting of multiple case studies in the form of ten in-depth interviews with owners/managers of organizations based in North America was conducted to understand organizations’ strategies for patenting the blockchain technology.

Findings

Several novel insights regarding the strategies are used for blockchain technology patenting. For example, the existence of strong anti-patent sentiment which results in a lack of patenting by start-up organizations or has led to a form of open source patenting strategy. Larger organizations appear to be patenting defensively, and small to medium organizations are primarily patenting to defend their competitive advantage.

Practical implications

Start-up organizations harboring anti-patent sentiment should consider the open-source patenting strategy to ensure that the collaborative innovation network can continue. They should also consider collaborating with other actors within the network to have a competitive position in the market.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to conduct an empirical study with organizations currently using the blockchain technology to understand patenting strategies used for blockchain.

Patenting strategy, Blockchain technology, Case study, Patent analysis, Clustering

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This research was supported, in part, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (external link, opens in new window)  (SSHRC).