- Capability group
- Connectivity, Cyber & Trust Technologies
- Domain
- Critical Technology · Hard Power
- Identifier
- factbase.org/cap/NQRD0HNM08
- Reference
- Distributed ledger Wikipedia
Papers
58.4k
2020–2024
Paper growth
+325%
2020–24 on 2015–19
Patent families
166.7k
2020–2024
Filed abroad
21%
families in more than one office
In the framework
What the capability covers and what it leaves to others, and the indicators it will be measured by.
Bounds
Covers trust technology as a family; national identity and payment systems built on it belong to Strategic Infrastructure and governance, and financial applications to the economic domains.
Lineage
Carried from v0.0 (formerly Distributed ledgers) with the same identifier; recast from a single data architecture to the family of trust technologies that architecture exemplifies, the widest rename in the release, carried because the underlying capacity, trust without central authority, is continuous.
Indicators
- research publication share in cryptography and privacy technologiesResearch
- digital identity systems deployed at national scalePending
Research
Papers classified to the capability, by year and by the nation of their authors' institutions, 2020–2024. Read from the v0.0 research topic Distributed ledgers.
Papers by year
The five leading nations, papers by year
Share of papers, 2020–2024
Of papers with a known author nation; 29% have none and are left out.
- 1China18.7%9,749 papers
- 2India15.2%7,908 papers
- 3United States9.2%4,777 papers
- 4United Kingdom4.4%2,269 papers
- 5Australia3.0%1,545 papers
- 6Canada2.5%1,296 papers
- 7Saudi Arabia2.4%1,271 papers
- 8Italy2.3%1,181 papers
- 9South Korea1.9%1,013 papers
- 10Germany1.9%1,009 papers
Leading institutions, 2020–2024
By fractional count: each paper divided among its authors' institutions.
- 1Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications280fractional papers
- 2Vellore Institute of Technology University241fractional papers
- 3SRM Institute of Science and Technology228fractional papers
- 4University of Electronic Science and Technology of China203fractional papers
- 5Sun Yat-sen University172fractional papers
- 6Beijing Institute of Technology152fractional papers
- 7Chandigarh University143fractional papers
- 8Chitkara University124fractional papers
- 9Lovely Professional University119fractional papers
- 10Beihang University117fractional papers
Patents
Patent families by the nation of origin of their applicants and their earliest priority year, from the CPC and IPC classes the capability is read from. 2025 onwards is incomplete: families are published 18 months after priority.
Families by priority year
The five leading origins, families by year
28,741 applicants filed here in 2015–2024; the five largest held 8% of families (HHI 29 of 10,000: unconcentrated).
Share of families by origin, 2020–2024
- 1China65.2%108,689 families
- 2United States13.8%23,059 families
- 3South Korea8.0%13,357 families
- 4Japan4.1%6,910 families
- 5Germany1.7%2,781 families
- 6Taiwan0.9%1,559 families
- 7France0.9%1,432 families
- 8United Kingdom0.6%986 families
- 9Switzerland0.6%948 families
- 10Canada0.5%818 families
Applicants filing most internationally, 2015–2024
Families filed in more than one office, by applicant as the offices name them.
- 1HUAWEI TECH CO LTD2,890international families
- 2SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD2,366international families
- 3ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING LTD1,203international families
- 4MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC1,201international families
- 5NEC CORP1,041international families
- 6ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M992international families
- 7ZTE CORP889international families
- 8INTEL CORP824international families
- 9ADVANCED NEW TECHNOLOGIES CO LTD809international families
- 10QUALCOMM INC751international families
Classification read
- H04L9/00 Cryptography: encryption, keys, signatures, blockchains, homomorphic encryption · 1.3m documents
- G06F21/30 Authentication of users and devices, including biometrics · 401.5k documents
- G06F21/6245 Protecting personal data, including anonymisation · 103.2k documents
- G06F21/64 Data integrity through signatures and certificates · 87.9k documents
- H04L63/08 Authentication of entities over networks · 488.7k documents
- H04W12/02 Privacy and anonymity in wireless networks · 42.3k documents
- H04W12/06 Authentication in wireless networks · 216.6k documents
Shares inventions with
Capabilities whose classes the same families also fall in, by overlap (Jaccard).
- Protective Cybersecurity Technologies45,520 families · 0.440
Companies
50 companies in this capability, across 7 regions. The leading 12:
- 1MicrosoftEntra ID (formerly Azure AD) is the world's most widely used enterprise identity platform, and Microsoft also leads in passkey/FIDO, verified ID and confidential computing patents and deployments.Software & services
- 2ThalesThrough the former Gemalto, Thales is a top supplier of SIM/eSIM, payment and ID cards, ePassports, hardware security modules (Luna HSM) and the CipherTrust encryption and key-management platform.Manufacture
- 3IDEMIALeading biometric identity firm (formed from Oberthur Technologies and Safran Morpho) whose IDEMIA Public Security biometrics and secure transactions businesses serve border, police and national ID programmes worldwide; its Smart Identity unit was sold to IN Groupe in 2024.Integration
- 4OktaLargest independent identity-as-a-service vendor, providing workforce and customer identity (Auth0) single sign-on, MFA and lifecycle management to tens of thousands of organisations.Software & services
- 5Ant GroupAmong the largest global filers of blockchain and privacy-computing patents (including via Advanced New Technologies), operating AntChain/ZAN consortium blockchain and the Yinyu privacy-preserving computation platform.Research
- 6HuaweiTop international patent applicant in this capability, covering authentication, trusted execution, network security and identity in telecom and device systems, plus its Huawei Cloud blockchain service.Research
- 7Infineon TechnologiesWorld leader in security microcontrollers for ePassports, ID and payment cards, TPMs and embedded secure elements (OPTIGA), and a pioneer of post-quantum secure chips.Manufacture
- 8NXP SemiconductorsMajor supplier of secure element, NFC and electronic-ID chips used in ePassports, national ID cards, MIFARE access credentials and mobile wallets.Manufacture
- 9IBMCo-originator of Hyperledger Fabric, co-author of NIST post-quantum standards (CRYSTALS-Kyber/Dilithium), pioneer of fully homomorphic encryption research and vendor of IBM Verify identity software.Research
- 10Samsung ElectronicsSecond-largest international patent applicant in this capability, producing secure element and biometric ID chips and the Knox device-trust and Samsung Wallet digital-ID platform.Manufacture
- 11CyberArkGlobal leader in privileged access and machine identity security (including Venafi, acquired 2024); Palo Alto Networks agreed in 2025 to acquire it.Software & services
- 12EntrustSupplies PKI, nShield hardware security modules, card and passport issuance systems and, through its 2024 acquisition of Onfido, AI-based identity verification.Integration
