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2 November 2018Patents

Bank of America granted blockchain patent

Bank of America secured a blockchain patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) earlier this week.

On Tuesday, October 30, the USPTO granted the patent (US number 10,116,633), which covers systems and devices for “hardened remote storage of private cryptography keys used for authentication”.

Filed in September 2016, the patent provides for a storage device that is tamper-responsive, meaning that when it receives a signal that indicates physical or non-physical tampering, the private cryptography keys are deleted from the memory.

Bank of America, in the application, stated that most cryptography keys’ only layer of protection is a password.

“Since most computing devices … are frequently, and in some instances continuously, connected to a wired and/or wireless public network, such as the internet or the like, internally stored private cryptography keys are continuously susceptible to being misappropriated by an entity that desires to usurp a user's identity,” said the patent.

It added that while many external storage devices provide for acquiring evidence of a security breach, they don’t provide for a real-time response to such breaches.

“Therefore, a need exists for a secure means for storing private cryptography keys,” said the bank.

Bank of America is not the only financial institution making waves in the blockchain space—in June, the USPTO published a blockchain-related patent that was filed by Mastercard.

The patent describes a method for conveying a “first public key” and payment credentials through a third-party data source by completing a number of steps.

In October, WIPR  reported that Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba had applied to obtain a patent for a blockchain solution that allows for third-party intervention where illegal activities have taken place.

But, according to Marc Kaufman of the Blockchain Intellectual Property Council, the growing number of patents covering blockchain will cause uncertainty in the space if patent ownership is highly concentrated and licences are available only through licence assertions. To read more about Kaufman’s views on the emerging landscape of risk in this space, click here.

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8 October 2018   Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba has applied to obtain a patent for a blockchain solution that allows for third-party intervention where illegal activities have taken place.
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11 June 2018   The US Patent and Trademark Office has published a blockchain-related patent that was filed by Mastercard.
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