Here’s a quick view of the increase over the past few years in the use of cryptocurrency terms found within the goods and services descriptions of US trademark filings. Specifically, we searched for the use of terms such as Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. As can be seen, there has been a significant uptick in filings, especially in the third quarter of 2017. Note that Q4-2017 data is not included. Some of the top filers include: GENIUSES AT WORK CORPORATION, BLOCKCHAIN GOC, R-STOR INC., VIDROLL LLC, RIVETZ CORP. , CENTRA TECH, INC., and TATS LABS, LLC. Below are tracks of the frequency of the terms Bitcoin and Blockchain, as from Google Trends.
Here are comparative growth charts of some Fintech Startups, identified by PrivCo as IPO candidates in 2017. IPqwery charted their overall IP filings (patents plus trademarks) and funding rounds. For our sample, we chose 4 companies that had a similar number of total IP filings, although the relative number of patents vs trademarks are varied within the group. One additional company (boku) was included as an outlier, having many more filings than the others (the vast majority of them being patents). Not surprisingly, overall there seems to be a positive relationship between funding and filing activity. Generally, the rate of IP filing increases in close proximity to funding rounds, whether for patents or trademarks. Perhaps naturally, securing IP for any startup may bode well for investors.
In a head to head comparison, IPqwery presents the IP holdings of Twitter and Snapchat. True, may not be a comparison of equals, but an interesting one nonetheless. Note: Aggregating this data is not trivial. There are many data manipulations required to accurately compile the IP profile for any company. This includes normalizing company names, verifying subsidiary companies and grouping related entities, and even match inventors with their respective companies. To investigate how this works in more detail, check out the IPqwery Chrome extension for Crunchbase and test it out yourself. Scroll at right below to see the entire infographic
