Chinese Telecoms giant Huawei has filed a patent application for a blockchain-related invention with China’s State Intellectual Property Office. The patent application released by the country’s Patent Office on Tuesday seeks to protect the intellectual property right through blockchain.
In the application, Huawei proposed a verification system based blockchain to protect intellectual property rights for digital content in a peer-to-peer content distribution network. The patent wall originally filed in August 2016.
In operation, Huawei’s system will record verification information like the Identities of copyright holders on the blockchain. When users within the P2P network send a request to download the content, the system will then match their private keys will before it grants them access to the content. Unless the verification information tallies, the system will not grant download access to a user.
Huawei is at the fore of emerging technologies like 5G network and blockchain. It is among the early adopters of Hyperledger Sawtooth having joined the blockchain consortium in 2016. Its latest patent application is still under review by the Chinese Patent Authorities.
The rush for blockchain patents
In 2017 and 2018, Patent Authorities have released a lot of blockchain-based patent filings in what has been described as “the rush for blockchain patent”.
The crackdown on cryptocurrencies in China has done little to halt the growth of blockchain technology in the country and Asia as a whole. Asian companies like Alibaba and Lenovo have recently filed blockchain-related patents. Bank of China last month filed a patent for a Blockchain Scalability Solution.
Other Asian companies like JD.com, Kakao, Alibaba, and Rakuten have also mulled blockchain-related initiatives this year.
Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.
