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 hint at future development.
In August 2020, Consensys acquired JPMorgan's Ethereum-based blockchain platform Quorum. In January 2021, a patent application for handling public keys in distributed networks while still maintaining data privacy was transferred from JPMorgan to Consensys. This was Consensys' first patent asset. JPMorgan has always been behind other large financial institutions in cryptocurrency patenting with only 10 patent assets compared to Bank of America (138) and Mastercard (90). JPMorgan has also not had any published patents since the Quorum acquisition. Consensys is reported to be moving away from consulting and services and towards blockchain products for revenue. If that's the case, the company should start investing in patents as soon as possible. They will likely have to buy and build to secure the best market position. Perhaps this new round of funding, and the recent activity with JPMorgan, will help. You can follow how patents drive decisions with the Cryptocurrency Patent Forecast®.
