Tech giants Ant Group and Tencent have topped a new list of the biggest holders of authorised patents for blockchain technology in China.
The “2021 China High Correlation Biockchain Authorised Invention Patent Ranking (Top 100)” (2021年中国高相关度区块链授权发明专利排行（TOP100）) released by IPRdaily and incoPat on 27 September points to surging growth in China’s blockchain patent volume since 2019.
As of 31 August 2021 China was host to a total of 4068 effective patent authorisations, while in 2020 alone China’s blockchain patent authorisations exceeded those for 2019 more than five-fold.
The Ranking puts Ant Group, Tencent and 33.cn as China’s top holders of effective blockchain patents.
China’s Top 10 Holders of Authorised Blockchain Patents
| No. | Enterprise | Number of effective blockchain patent applications as of 31 August 2021 |
| 1 | Ant Group | 631 |
| 2 | Tencent | 307 |
| 3 | 33.com (复杂美) | 86 |
| 4 | China Unicom | 80 |
| 5 | Baidu | 76 |
| 6 | JDD | 57 |
| 7 | Hyperchain (趣链科技) | 47 |
| 8 | Ree Chain (瑞策科技) | 44 |
| 9 | IAllChain (全链通) | 42 |
| 10 | China Ping An | 39 |
