Abstract: With the booming development of blockchain technology, the application of blockchain technology has been extended to many fields, such as digital finance, Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, management of supply chain, digital asset trading and so on. The number of global patent applications is increasing year by year in order to gain a competitive position in technology and market. Taking the Derwent innovation platform as the data source, and with the help of Excel, DDA (Derwent data analyzer), DI (Derwent innovation) and Incopat as the data processing tools, this paper makes a global and domestic application situation analysis of patents in the field of blockchain technology, and further excavates and analyzes the core technologies, high-value patents and key research institutions in the field of blockchain technology. The results show that the global patent application in the field of blockchain technology is developing rapidly, and the distribution of countries/regions continues to expand. China is the main source country and market country of technology in this field, and its key institutions mainly distribute patents in the domestic market. However, the highly cited patents are generally from the United States, and its key institutions have a wide distribution around the world, indicating that the United States has strong strength in the core technology. Through the analysis of the core technology in the field of blockchain, it is found that patents mainly focusing on the digital information processing and transmission technology. The hot fields include identity authentication, smart contract, public and private keys and hash algorithm. The highly cited patents mostly involve validation and recordation of virtual asset transactions, authentication and verification of digital data and digital signatures, etc. China should pay attention to the research and development of the underlying technology, and actively grasp the layout of hot technology, so as to build China’s core competitiveness in this field. 

Key words: Blockchain Technology, Patent Analysis, Situation Analysis, Layout Hotspots, Highly Cited Patent