New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Today's Spotlight Patents continue our theme of blockchains (smart contracts, distributed ledgers) and rights management broadly construed. Assigned to Salesforce, the first patent addresses techniques for implementing super community and community sidechains with consent management for distributed ledger technologies in a cloud based computing environment. Assigned to AT&T, the second patent addresses techniques for blockchain based device management.
10,701,054, "Systems, methods, and apparatuses for implementing super community and community sidechains with consent management for distributed ledger technologies in a cloud based computing environment," assigned to Salesfore.com, Inc.
Abstract
Systems, methods, and apparatuses for implementing super community and community sidechains with consent management for distributed ledger technologies in a cloud based computing environment are described herein. For example, according to one embodiment there is a system having at least a processor and a memory therein executing within a host organization and having therein: means for operating a blockchain interface to a blockchain on behalf of a plurality of tenants of the host organization, wherein each of the plurality of tenants are participating nodes with the blockchain; means for receiving a login request from a user device, the login request requesting access to a user profile associated with a first one of the plurality of tenants; means for authenticating the user device and retrieving a user profile from the blockchain based on the authentication of the user device, wherein the user profile is stored as a blockchain asset within the blockchain with a first portion of the user profile comprising non-protected data accessible to all participating nodes on the blockchain and with a second portion of the user profile comprising protected data accessible only to participating nodes having user consent; means for prompting the user device to grant user consent to share the protected data with a second one of the plurality of tenants; and means for sharing the protected data with the second one of the plurality of tenants by permitting access to the protected data within the blockchain asset by the second tenant's participating node. Other related embodiments are disclosed.
10,693,716, "Blockchain based device management," assigned to AT&T.
Abstract
Techniques are disclosed herein for employing blockchain for managing devices. Information for the devices may be stored in a blockchain ledger on a computer system that is part of a blockchain fabric. The computer system may include memory, a network interface and a processor. The memory may store a portion of a blockchain ledger for managing a plurality of devices, wherein the blockchain ledger comprises a plurality of blocks, each block comprises a plurality of transactions, and each transaction is associated with one of the devices. The network interface may receive a transaction, wherein the transaction comprises a unique identifier and configuration information for a device. The processor may determine that the computing server is authorized to issue the transaction to update the blockchain ledger, and cause the update to the blockchain ledger using the transaction.
