IBM Scores Patent on Proposed Blockchain Consensus for Transactions in Multip...

One of the UK's largest telecoms is seeking a patent for a security system aimed at preventing malicious attacks on blockchains. British Telecommunications (BT) PLC submitted a patent application last July for “Mitigating Blockchain Attacks” to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The application, released on 2nd February, details both a system and methods for monitoring transactions on a particular blockchain in a bid to “detect malicious attacks”, the application’s authors write. The filing is notable given its source, as BT is the largest Internet service provider in the UK,....

Goldman Sachs has submitted a patent application focusing on how blockchain could cut out the middle man with transaction costs, claiming that the technology could change the current process. The patent, “Systems and Methods for Updating a Distributed Ledger-Based on Partial Validations of Transactions”, which was published on September 8 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), was initially filed in March 2015, making it Goldman Sach’s first blockchain focused patent. Banks Turning to Blockchain. Since the introduction of bitcoin, banks have slowly been turning their attention to....

Bitcoin is a technological marvel that has revolutionized financial systems. The birth of bitcoin came in 2008 in a paper entitled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The genesis block – the first block of transactions – was created the following year, and the network has continued ever since. Given that no person (or group) has credibly claimed authorship of the 2008 Nakamoto paper or the bitcoin transaction method it describes, not surprisingly, no patent based on that original work has appeared. However, that does not stop us....

A Brooklyn blockchain startup has been awarded a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its work using the tech to facilitate peer-to-peer energy transfers. LO3 is one of several startups seeking to using a blockchain system to reimagine how energy transfer networks function, looking to distributed networks as a means to cut inefficiencies and costs. Founder Lawrence Orsini and TRC Energy Services project manager Julianna Yun Wei are listed as inventors. The application was originally submitted to the USPTO last November. The patent, published on 25th October, focuses on....

Bitcoin Core contributor, Peter Todd, announced that a hard-fork had been proposed to negate attempts to patent the ASICBoost method. According to a message sent out by Peter, this proposed idea sprang from an agreement made at a Bitcoin-oriented round-table in February. The round-table was attended by a slew of representatives from the Bitcoin development and industry, and focused on a variety of different subjects. The intent of this fork is to make ASIC boost optimisation useless, and ideally the change would be SPV compatible. However, according to Peter, if a change to SPV clients....