Nokia Launches Blockchain Product. Market May Be Surprised. Patent Followers are Not.
Nokia doesn't quite have a reputation for being on the cutting edge of technology. In terms of consumer electronics, it is perhaps best known for its indestructible cell phones from the early 2000s. However, the company is still an…
Securrency Raises $30M, Leads in DeFi Patents
Securrency uses blockchain technology to automate and regulate compliance and transactions for decentralized finance (DeFi), which does not rely on centralized banks, exchanges, or other traditional financial institutions. The company has…
Coinbase IPO Headlines. Its Patents Indicate a Bullish Future.
In Q1 2021, Patent Forecast® reported on Coinbase going public via direct public offering. At the time, market watchers predicted a valuation of over $50B. On its opening day of April 14, 2021, stock debuted at $381 per share and at one…
Consensys Raises $65M, Gets Platform and First Patent Asset
Blockchain solutions developer Consensys raised $65M in its recent funding round with investments from big-name financial institutions including UBS and JPMorgan. The company's patent portfolio is almost non-existent, but certain moves may…
Patents Prove Signal and MobileCoin are a Good Match
Secure messaging platform Signal is beta testing a peer-to-peer payment system on its app. The system supports the MobileCoin coin and wallet protocol, which makes sense when you consider Signal's reputation for privacy and security.…
Dapper Labs Raises $300M Amidst NFT Hype
Canadian startup Dapper Labs has developed a number of games, blockchain networks, and NFT digital collectibles platforms. Its platform, backed by patent-pending technology uses a more efficient consensus that may prove to be even more…
Verasity Announces NFT Platform. Patent Issues 6 Days Later — See the Pattern?
Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art has become a huge topic of discussion in recent weeks. As multiple industries rush to explore implementations as well as security concerns, it turns out the companies who have invested in patents may come out…
Christie’s Brings Cryptocurrency to Auctions
The world of art collecting and auctions is moving towards cryptocurrency, revealing a white space in the Patent Forecast®. In February of 2021, the prestigious Christie's auction house announced that it would be accepting cryptocurrency…
PayPal Acquires Curv to Block Competition in Cryptocurrency Transactions
PayPal, which caused a surge in Bitcoin valuation when it enabled cryptocurrency transactions on its platform in October of 2020, is acquiring the start-up Curv, which has raised over $29M to develop its digital wallet platform technology.…
Coinbase Going Public Thanks to Patent Portfolio
Digital currency exchange platform Coinbase has filed to go public through a direct public offering. Despite taking a purely defensive stance on software patents — since 2015, the company has claimed it will not use patents offensively and…
Sorare Gets Funding from Uber and Twitter. Is it Too Late to Patent?
Blockchain soccer gaming platform Sorare has raised $50 million in a Series A round, with investment from well-known tech companies like Twitter and Uber. Despite this success, the company has not yet invested in patents. But the Patent…
Mastercard Pushing Forward, Visa Lagging Behind?
Mastercard announced on February 10 that it would start supporting cryptocurrency transactions, months after PayPal made a similar announcement and caused a Bitcoin surge in October of 2020. At the time, we noted that PayPal's patents left…
Is Apple Equipped to Handle Crypto?
A research report from investment bank RBC Capital Markets has raised the price target for Apple stock from $154 to $171, speculating that the tech company is well-positioned to enter the cryptocurrency market. RBC's reasoning is that the…
Patents Aid Acquisition Yet Again
Online job recruitment platform Job.com has acquired Talenting, which develops a blockchain-based system for aggregating and assessing professional data in order to streamline job searching and hiring. Job.com already implements blockchain…
State Farm and USAA Lead in Blockchain Insurance
State Farm and USAA have been investing in blockchain for a few years, with continuous patent filings since 2017 and 2016, respectively. Now, the insurance companies are implementing a blockchain solution for subrogation claims, which…
Hedera Hashgraphs in Hospitals
A hospital network in the United Kingdom has started implementing distributed ledger technology (DLT) from Hedera Hashgraph to track COVID-19 vaccines. The hospital network has experience using IoT sensors to track temperature-sensitive…
A Rundown of the Crypto Open Patent Alliance
In September 2020, mobile payment services company Square announced the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to encourage companies to share their innovation in an open-source library and pledge not to offensively assert patent…
Why is Bitcoin Up? Inflation, Banks, and…Pornhub
Inflation On March 9, 2020, there was about $4 trillion in circulation. As of November 30, 2020, the money supply stood at over $6.5 trillion, largely due to coronavirus related stimulus bills. A December stimulus bill added $900…
Cryptocurrency Becoming a Safe Gamble for 2021
International Game Technology (IGT), a UK-based company that makes gambling machines and lottery platforms, developed a cashless pay system that was approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The system lets gamblers use loyalty cards or…
Xbox Expanding Blockchain Platform – just as our Patent Forecast® Predicted
Microsoft is expanding its Xbox blockchain platform to allow gaming partners and content creators to track their royalties on a blockchain-based system that utilizes smart contracts for faster and more transparent execution. It's not a…
PatientBlox files Patent. Signaled Acquisition acquires them a few months later. Coincidence? Of course not.
Home healthcare tech provider Signify Health announced the acquisition of blockchain-based healthcare payment platform PatientBlox at the end of November of 2020. Signify Health coordinates at-home care for patients. The company has a…
Blockchains, LLC is in Acquisition Mode. We Have Suggestions.
Software solutions developer Blockchains, LLC is acquiring identity management company Cambridge Blockchain. The latter company was founded in 2015 and has raised $13M in funding for its blockchain-based system for generating and tracking…
Airbnb Says Cryptocurrency Is Its Future – But It’s Sure Not Acting Like It.
After a difficult year, Airbnb has filed an IPO prospectus with plans to go public in December. The prospectus claims that "future success... will depend on our ability to adapt to emerging technologies such as tokenization,…
Mastercard Banking on Crypto Patents
On a recent Q3 earnings call, financial services giant Mastercard claimed its IP portfolio "puts us in a good position" for a digital currency future. The Magic Number Patent Forecast puts us in a perfect position to analyze just how true…
ErisX Ready to Clear House
Three-year-old startup ErisX has won approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to expand its clearinghouse platform from dealing only in cryptocurrency futures to handling all futures. The company, born of the…
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