FinTech Revolution: The Game Changer Technologies And The Patent Landscape

• Published date: 07 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Technology, Patent, Fin Tech
• Law Firm: Photon legal
• Author: Photon Legal

Financial technology, or FinTech, has seen some ground-breaking innovations in recent years that have the potential to change the way the financial ecosystem operates in the coming decades. The cutting-edge research and development in the fields of Digital Payment Systems, Blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Artificial Intelligence, Cryptocurrencies, the Internet of Things (IoT), etc. have led to the emergence of many novel technologies and solutions. Due to this significant change in the financial services industry, the past 10 years have seen some fascinating trends in patent filing, licensing and monetization activities, and most recently, multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions.

An overview of the FinTech ecosystem is provided in the figure below.

Patents filling trend

In general, innovation and patents go hand in hand, and the last decade has been a defining year for the FinTech industry, which continues to grow with more R&D investments by key players. According to the patent filing trend, the year 2023 will see a nearly 60% increase in patent filing activities by organisations when compared to the year 2013.

Patent filing trend in last decade in FinTech Space

Geographical Distribution:

Over the last decade, the United States has been the epicentre of patent filing activity, followed by China and Korea. India is a new entrant in the top five jurisdictions for patent filings, which can be attributed to the immense potential and deep penetration of technology-based solutions provided to the masses by the Fintech companies.

Geographical distribution of patents in FinTech Space

Aside from the country of origin of the patents, the United States appears to be the preferred geography of interest for protecting innovations. The EP and China are followed by Japan and Korea.

Geographical distribution w.r.t country of origin of patents in FinTech Space

Technology Distribution:

The digital transformation of financial services has resulted in maximum innovation in the payment architectures or protocols domain, which has accounted for 32% of patents in the last decade. Finance, insurance, and tax strategies are the next obvious categories for innovation, along with cutting-edge research in AI, Big data, and predictive analytics. The critical aspect of the Fintech ecosystem, the network security protocols and authentication services at endpoints, has also seen nearly 15% of patents filed in this domain. Many innovative solutions emerged from...