# Emerging Perspectives of Blockchains in Food Supply Chain Traceability Based on Patent Analysis
## 3 Results
### Distribution of Topics by Country of Origin  
Leading countries holding patents denoted as being topic A, which deals with BC-supported tracing and tracking in FSCs, are the US and China, while a significantly smaller  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c}
**Application Number** & **Title** & & & & & \\ \hline \multicolumn{6}{c}{**Topic A: BC SUPPORTED TRACING AND TRACKING IN FSC**} \\ \hline EP2008875543 & High-reliability product/activity tracking system & A & 10 & 24 & 34 \\ \hline US16/386147 & DNA Based Bar Code for Improved Food Traceability & A & 6 & 19 & 25 \\ \hline US17/159123 & Food Supply Tracking, Verification, and Feedback System & A & 8 & 14 & 22 \\ \hline AU2020203178 & A Machine Type Communication System or Device for Recording Supply Chain Information on a Distributed Ledger in a Peer to Peer Network & A & 4 & 14 & 18 \\ \hline CN201811587331.4 & Food tracing and query analysis system and method based on a HACCP system & A & 1 & 15 & 16 \\ \hline EP2019892440 & System, device, and process for tracking product & A & 6 & 9 & 15 \\ \hline US17/257503 & Enterprise Consumer Safety System & A & 2 & 9 & 11 \\ \hline CN201610175359.1 & Meat food supply chain tracing method based on RFID, QRCode and NFC & A & 2 & 9 & 11 \\ \hline US15/378124 & Supply chain tracking of farm produce and crops & A & 2 & 8 & 10 \\ \hline US16/875011 & Dot-matrix product information encoding for food traceability & A & 5 & 3 & 8 \\ \hline \multicolumn{6}{c}{**TOPIC B: DEVICES AND METHODS SUPPORTING APPLICATION OF BC IN ESC**} \\ \hline CN201410151778.2 & Internet fast food distribution cabinet & B & 2 & 12 & 14 \\ \hline CN202010543066.0 & Fresh food supply chain knowledge graph construction method based on semi-structured data & B & 1 & 9 & 10 \\ \hline \multicolumn{6}{c}{**TOPIC C: COMBINING BC AND OTHER ICT TECHNOLOGIES IN FSC**} \\ \hline CA2776577 & A system and method establishing an agricultural pedigree for at least one agricultural product & C & 13 & 90 & 103 \\ \hline EP2019823567 & Systems and methods for permission blockchain infrastructure with fine-grained access control and confidentiality-preserving publish/subscribe messaging & C & 6 & 10 & 16 \\ \hline US16/978312 & Non-specific, wireless detection of electrically or magnetically labeled bacteria and/or virus & C & 4 & 3 & 7 \\ \hline \multicolumn{6}{c}{**TOPIC D: BC SUPPORTED TRADING IN FSC**} \\ \hline EP2017761847 & System and method for determining or monitoring a process variable in an automation plant & D & 6 & 22 & 28 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 3: The 16 potentially most influential patents from the observed patent portfolio by identified topics.  
number of patents on this topic have been filed in India, the EU, and other countries (Figure 8).  
Regarding topic B, China represented 77% of patents, which implies that this country takes the leading role in the development of novel devices and methods supporting the application of BCs in FSCs (Figure 8).  
The highest number of patents on topic C, related to combining BC and other ICT technologies in FSCs, was submitted in India with 71% of the total number of patent applications. A significant number of patent applications from this topic originate in Australia (18%), while only 11% come from the rest of the world (Figure 8).  
The highest share of patents on topic D, which deals with BC-supported online trading in FSCs, comes from China (45%), closely followed by the US (33%) (Figure 8).