Nowadays, you can buy anything in almost any city even foreign countries without paying cashif you have a smartphone and good credit records. Currently, there are more than 200 Chinese companies vying for mobile payment market. Thanks to the patent support, there are many new challenges appeared in this new technical area.

In 2015, 358 million users accessed to mobile payment, an increase of two- thirds over the same period of last year. 16.4 trillion yuan payments were made through mobile payments, two times and 12 times than that of 2014 and 2013 respectively. There is media commentary that China's booming mobile payment market has left the U.S. far behind.

Alibaba and Tencent are two major powers in China’s mobile payment market. Currently, the pound, the U.S. dollar, Australian dollar, euro and other six foreign currencies can directly trade at Wechat payment of Tencent.The Alipay of Alibaba has made it into the global major airports, and travelers can use their phones to make purchase with Alipay at 69 retail units at Munich airport. China has marched from domestic market to international mobile payment market and patent layout has played an important role in this process. As of February this year, Tencent has filed 46 invention applications, Alibaba, 32 applications while Apple company, only three applications.

In addition to Tencent and Alibaba, Xiaomi announced the company's new mobile payment service MI Pay, which is another maker of mobilephones after Apply Pay, Samsung Payand Huawei Pay. Actually, Xiaomi Company filed 200 patent applications in mobile payment as early as 2013 before it dipped its toe into Internet finance industry.

The Huawei and ZTE which integrate mobile device and communication service have attached a great importance to IPR in this field. At the Mobile World Congress held in February this year, the appearance of Huawei Pay had attracted world’s attention. In early August, ZTE announced that it has reached agreement with Union Pay, and users can pay for the relevant expenses by ZTE Pay.

With the Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and other foreign payment tools entering into China’s huge mobile payment market, the domestic users have more choices. The domestic mobile payment firms should meet the requirements of users, and cope with global challenge actively by making breakthrough in security technology and applications, and improving patent layout.

(by Sun Di)

(Source: China IP News)