IBM applies for blockchain-based web browser patent
Technology company IBM filed yet another blockchain-based patent application at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last week.
This time, the patent focuses on a system that records a maintains a record of browser events in a blockchain using a peer-to-peer network.
Published by the USPTO on Tuesday, August 6, the IBM patent application notes that examples of data that could be stored on the blockchain include: bookmarks, searches, cookies, and websites visited.
“The present invention affords a system for storing browsing information such that privacy is preserved and places privacy in the ‘hands of a user’ rather than a third party,” said the application.
IBM added that the nature of the added content may be changed by some context, such as work browsing versus home, or ‘in private’ browsing versus normal browsing.
According to the application, if a computer browser is attacked, the blockchain will contain the most current browser history.
Earlier this month, IBM united with blockchain services company Chainyard to introduce a new blockchain network designed to improve “supplier qualification, validation, onboarding and life cycle information management”.
Other founding participants include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone.
IBM was also chosen, alongside Merck & Co, KPMG, and Walmart by the US Food and Drug Administration in June this year, to form a pilot project aimed at evaluating the use of blockchain to protect pharmaceutical product integrity.
Late last year, IBM announced it was collaborating with data storage firm Seagate Technology to explore how blockchain technologies can generate “electronic fingerprints”, which can be used to reduce the counterfeiting of hard drives.
Alongside these collaborations, the technology company is filing other blockchain patent applications. In April, IBM submitted a patent application for a system that uses the technology to allow self-driving vehicles to predict the behaviour of human drivers.
IBM isn’t the only company interested in this developing technology—Bank of America last year secured a blockchain patent cover systems and devices for “hardened remote storage of private cryptography keys used for authentication” in October last year.
In the same month, Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba 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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