Alibaba taking shine to patents ahead of IPO in the US

China's largest e-commerce company hopes to face down potential competitors by boosting defense

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is beefing up its patent holdings in the United States, a move that may help it to avoid the pitfalls that bedeviled Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc ahead of their initial public offerings.

China's largest e-commerce company has obtained 102 US patents, including 20 purchased from IBM last year, according to researcher Envision IP. Alibaba also has applied for more than 300 others for technology such as payment processing, product recommendations and picture searches, the US Patent and Trademark Office's database shows.