PABC: A Patent Application System Based on Blockchain

Abstract

Under the protection of the patent system, an inventor can patent his or her invention, to make an economic profit from the patent, thus encouraging further invention. However, a patent is territorial. To get an international patent, the invention should be patented several times in all target patent offices, even with the help of international conventions like PCT, leading to inefficiency, expensiveness, and uncertainty. Therefore, we construct an international patent application system based on a permissioned blockchain named PABC. Patent applications can be approved or rejected without relying on one patent office. Each patent office in a country or region manages a peer node of the system, reaching agreements of all the applications. First, we build the model of the system and detail the three-layer architecture of PABC Core. Then, we implement PABC on a permissioned blockchain platform — Hyperledger Fabric. In addition, experiments about its throughput, transaction latency, and failure rate were carried out. The results show that PABC can meet current needs.