PayPal – Leading the Way in Payments Processing

PayPal is one of the largest online payments companies that allow parties to make payments through online fund transfers. The company provides its technology and digital payments platform to e-commerce users, merchants, online vendors and individuals wishing to electronically transfer or receive funds in a secure manner.

PayPal was founded in 1998 by Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, Peter Thiel, and Ken Howery as Confinity, a company that developed security software for handheld devices. In 1999, Confinity transitioned into a money transfer service and merged with X.com, an Elon Musk company, in 2000. X.com offered internet banking services and after the merger, Confinity’s money transfer service became the prime focus of the company. In 2001, X.com was renamed PayPal.

After PayPal went public in 2002, it gained popularity as an online payments processor and was acquired by eBay soon after. PayPal then became the official payments transfer service for the eBay website. PayPal began trading publicly as an independent company in 2015 following its spin-off from eBay.

In this report, we present insights into PayPal’s technology assets and patent portfolio.

General Trends

Figure 1: Published Applications – Growth [Click on image to enlarge]

PayPal owns a patent portfolio of over 3,000 active patents and applications. The publications show a continuous upward trend with a sharp growth between 2011 and 2013, as seen in Figure 1.

 

Figure 2: Key Geographies [Click on image to enlarge]

Figure 2 shows that the U.S., with more than 80% of the published applications, is the preferred jurisdiction for PayPal to file in, followed by the European Patent Office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Technology Trends

In 2018, the total number of active user accounts on PayPal reached an estimated 237 million. PayPal’s strategic partnerships and acquisitions have enabled the company to grow at a rapid pace. PayPal’s tie-ups with financial services behemoths such as MasterCard and Visa have enabled it to provide compelling offerings to its customers.

PayPal’s acquisitions over the years have expanded its presence in the online payments sector. By acquiring companies such as Braintree, Xoom and Venmo, it has diversified into services such as processing, remittances, credit lines and peer-to-peer transactions.

PayPal has also been interested in virtual currencies. In 2013, Founders Fund, which includes three PayPal founders, invested $2 million in BitPay. PayPal also filed a patent for a ‘Modular Device Payment System’ in December 2015. The application describes a virtual currency wallet system that is integrated with smart devices.

Figure 3: Topic Map – Concepts [Click on image to enlarge]

Figure 3 is a Topic Map of the top technologies (based on key concepts) covered by PayPal’s portfolio. In the figure, the size of a bubble corresponds to the total number of patent applications for a technology category. The bubble proximity corresponds to the similarity or “relatedness” of the individual technology categories.

About 50% of PayPal’s active patent portfolio covers technologies related to ‘Data processing in relation to payments’ and ‘Data processing adapted for billing, commerce or marketing’. The average patent quality of the portfolio is relatively high. PayPal’s portfolio has an average Relecura Star rating of 2.73 out of 5. Typically, a patent with a Relecura Star rating of 3 or more is deemed as one of high-quality.

A technology category-wise competitor comparison of PayPal with Visa, Mastercard, Alphabet, Intuit and Square shows that Alphabet possesses a larger number of patents than PayPal, in technologies related to payments. PayPal in turn is almost level with Alphabet with regard to patents related to Electronic shopping. Read our report to get more detailed information and insights into the various aspects of PayPal’s patent portfolio.

Get the Patent Portfolio Report.


Discover the impact of your patents

Home > PayPal – Leading the Way in Payments Processing
A custom built AI Platform to support, generate, and manage innovation

Streamline your innovation ecosystem through the assimilation of the latest AI capabilities for a competitive edge.

  • AI powered custom solutions for Innovation Intelligence
  • Automation of competitor analysis
  • Identification of emerging technologies and companies
  • Whitespace Analysis and Potential M&A Targets
  • Strategic decision making supported by real-time data

Drive growth through insights that matter

Investment management

The dilemma of where, when, and how much to invest in the innovation space is a critical factor...

Know More

Due Diligence

M&A is a strategic process, aimed at a mutually supportive and complementary association, resulting in a synergized end...

Know More

Monetization

Innovation reaches a dead-end if it cannot be monetized when the innovator fails to trace and reach out...

Know More

Portfolio organization

Management of IP assets is costly and labor-intensive. Relecura offers classifier tools for categorizing and organizing data automatically...

Know More

AI Platform for innovation intelligence

Relecura’s forte is its flexibility and adaptability to address specific problems and close-fitting solutions. The basic problem is that innovators are often not able to identify the industrial and commercial significance of their innovation as due diligence takes long days of analyses, necessitating a deviation from their regular and familiar activities. And it is a tedious iteration process. The latest custom AI capabilities help you assess the commercial value of innovation and technical due diligence can be automated to yield meaningful and immediate results. The repetitive tasks could be automated, and your time and energy could be devoted to strategic missions.

Portfolio organization

Management of large Innovation data is costly and labor intensive. Relecura offers AI-powered classification tools for categorizing and organizing data automatically and instantly. Automated Categorization against suitably chosen training documents keeps your innovation portfolio updated and lucidly classified, amenable to instant analyses.

Technology trends

Relecura offers fully automated custom AI solutions to track and explore developments in different technology areas. You can stay updated on the latest developments in different companies and technologies of your interest, which facilitates intelligent decision-making.

Competitive intelligence

Competitive intelligence is a prerequisite for strategic decision making. Relecura provides tools to track the innovation and publication dynamics of your competitors, based on which you can prioritize your innovation initiatives and thus hone up your competitive edge.

Investment Management

Relecura uses white space analysis within its product platform known as the TechTracker, an AI-powered tool that provides insights on various technological trends and offers a peep into your competitor’s patent arsenal. Additionally, it helps you keep track of emerging organizations and technologies to help you manage your budgets and investments, optimally.

What our valuable customers are
saying about us?

“Relecura helps us remain innovative by allowing us to see where the competition is playing through the landscaping tools. It lets us see where there are new opportunities and helps us focus in on those areas in an intelligent way.”

 

Alex M.,
IP Manager, a Multinational Technology Corporation, US

Relecura helps us ride the crest of innovation wave keeping a competitive edge.” It helps us identify the white spaces and where the opportunities are.”

John N,
Director of IP at a Global Data Storage & Semiconductor Company, US

‘Our policy decisions regarding the focus areas of research and investment are being taken based on the insights offered by the custom AI tool, TechTracker, which offers a clear picture about the emerging technologies, companies, and the white spaces on the technology landscape of the key players. This helps us optimize resource utilization and maximize returns,’

Subu N.,
Innovation Manager at an Indian Conglomerate, India

‘The Classifier tool, introduced by Relecura, is indeed useful in managing and updating large datasets. After having subscribed to that AI-powered tool, in-house big data management and analyses have become easier and hassle-free.”

Fabian L.,
R&D, a Global Semiconductor Company, US

“Relecura platform is fueled by the latest technologies, and the tools that the platform hosts make our in-house innovation management smooth and accurate, in addition to being synchronized with the global technology frontline.”

Viktor P.,
Innovation Strategy at a Global Consumer Product Company, South Korea
0M+
TOTAL RECORDS
0M+
ASSIGNMENT TRANSACTIONS
0+
TRUSTED USERS
0+
JURISDICTIONS

Recent Blog Posts

Make faster, better technology decisions with Relecura

Connect with our Specialists

Our professional services offer training and support to minimise time-to-value on the Relecura platform and make more timely, confident IP decisions